He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not by Trish Ryan
September 9th, 2008Title: He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not
Author: Trish Ryan
Publisher: FaithWords (2008)
This is the second spiritual memoir written by a girl that I have reviewed at Letters on Pages. I loved Trespassers Will Be Baptized…and this was a great book too. I can only assume that all spiritual memoirs written by girls are excellent. He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not by Trish Ryan follows Ryan’s search for both a husband and spiritual truth (psst…she finds both!). Ryan’s writing style really keeps the story flowing and her descriptive ability is excellent.
When Ryan was young, she married a man who was not a very good guy. He never physically abused her, but that’s only because he knew he could get in trouble for that. All other types of abuse were fair game…and he LOVED that game. Eventually Ryan couldn’t take it anymore and left (although escaped might be the better term). As she began her new single life, she furthered her search for enlightenment.
Her quest took her through seemingly every single religion or spiritual idea possible. Practicing a melting pot of New Age thought she studied meditation, life coaching, astrology, feng shui, etc… The entire time she kept hearing God telling her things, but she kind of brushed it aside. Ryan makes the point (and she isn’t the first) that in the discipline of New Age spiritual truth, everything is acceptable…except Christianity. Knowing this, Ryan was willing to try anything except Christianity.
Eventually, after exhausting all other options, she gave Christianity a shot. She started to attend a Vineyard Church (which happens to be the same church I go to, just in a different city) to find out more about Jesus and God. To her credit, even though she was very skeptical and her New Age friends were appalled, she came willing to listen and learn. As she looked around at the lives of the people around her, she realized these people were truly happy…unlike her compatriots looking for God through astrology. As she learned more and more, she hesitantly became more involved, and eventually becoming a born again Christian and follower of Jesus.
The second theme of the book was her attempt to find the perfect husband. Throughout her New Age life, she was never able to find someone who could be the man that she wanted/needed. As she grew closer to God, He finally brought the right man in her life. I kind of saw that coming…otherwise the end of this book would have been pretty depressing!
This book is very funny, extremely well written and can also be inspiring to those who are searching for spiritual truth. I highly recommend it to anyone (not just girls looking for a man) who has been asking themselves these same questions.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
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