7 Engaging Spiritual Memoirs You Should Read

In recent years, the spiritual memoir has experienced a resurgence in popularity. This style of nonfiction is a personal account in which the author searches to uncover and honor what’s sacred about his or her life. Below, we’ve gathered a few uniquely engaging Christian spiritual memoir titles from which you might find inspiration for your own life.

• The Hiding Place (Corrie Ten Boom). This book is a classic spiritual memoir that should be in everyone’s “read” pile. The book follows Ten Boom and her family as they navigate the extremely perilous landscape of World War II, helping Jews and underground workers escape from the Nazis under Hitler. Because of their work, they were placed in Nazi death camps, and only Ten Boom survived to tell the story of how God’s love always triumphs over evil.
• Girl at the End of the World (Elisabeth Esther). Elisabeth Esther was raised in a fundamentalist cult called The Assembly. She married an Assembly member, and both left the cult. Her memoir talks about her before and after experiences, including her struggle to cope with “religious PTSD.”
• Wherever the River Runs: How a Forgotten People Renewed My Hope in the Gospel (Kelly Minter). This exotic memoir follows Minter as she connects with the “forgotten” people of the Amazon and, through her experience in the jungle amid the piranhas and caimans, meets God in a way that makes the Gospel come alive and transforms her faith.
• Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (C.S. Lewis). This book is a profound telling of C.S. Lewis’ early life as he walks through his what it was like growing up in Belfast, living at boarding school, living as an atheist and experience in World War I, eventually arriving at his time at Oxford, where he says he became “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England” — all the while exploring his search for joy and how it guided him to God.
• The Pastor’s Kid: Finding Your Own Faith and Identity (Barnabas Piper). The son of well-known pastor John Piper, the author explores what it’s like to grow up in that shadow and the journey of forging his own path spiritually. He not only lays out the challenges, but offers intelligent insight into how others can find the same freedom.
• Rome Sweet Home (Scott and Kimberly Hahn). Scott Hahn was a Presbyterian minister who’d been taught Catholicism was the enemy. Over time, he and his wife decided to convert to Catholicism. This memoir is part spiritual journey, part apologetics.
• Girl Meets God (Lauren F. Winner). Winner actually converted twice. Raised as a reformed Jew, she later converted to Orthodox Judaism—but eventually found Christianity intriguing. In her memoir, she explores both of these faith experiences.