A friend of mine once looked on my bookshelf and said,
“Spinach salad.”

“Excuse me?”

“You read spinach salad books,” she said. “Not brussel
sprouts, which are good for you but hard to swallow. Not junk food. But books
that are both tasty and good for you. Like spinach salad. With no bacon.”

She had a point. I have no patience for beautiful prose that
doesn’t advance a good story. And no interest in books whose words and ideas
won’t linger after I’m done.

My good friend Trish Ryan’s second book, A Maze of Grace: A Memoir of Second Chances, is a spinach salad
book, albeit a spinach salad book that includes the bacon. The book is a personal
narrative, although, as the title suggests, it doesn’t follow a linear
chronological path. The chapters hold together, but it is more a collection of
essays than a memoir. It covers the years after her marriage to Steve (the
culmination of her first memoir, He Loves
Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After) and after she first fell in love with Jesus. Ryan
discusses the pitfalls of married life–What if I have a crush on another man?
What if I get fat? What if he disappoints me? Side by side, she discusses the
pitfalls of Christian life–Do I have to change my politics if I follow Jesus?
Do I have to convert all my friends and my family? Does prayer really work?
What if God disappoints me?

She’s honest: “It took Steve and me approximately three days
to realize that talking endlessly about our disagreements didn’t solve them,
sex mattered way more than we’d thought, and my feelings lied all the time
about what was really going on.”

And she can get serious: “Relationships don’t fail because
they’re cut quickly through with a knife or a pair of sharp scissors. Most come
unraveled. A tug at one thread that twirls it slowly away from the others…”

Two things separate this book from a run-of-the-mill
marriage memoir. One, Ryan approaches her marriage with the eyes of newfound
faith in Jesus, which includes trust that God’s directions for relationships
are better than the ones advocated by Cosmo and Sex and the City. Two, the fact
that Ryan is a relatively new Christian who has spent decades trying out other
spiritual (and relational) options means that she discusses both her faith and
her marriage without relying on Christian buzzwords or clichés.

With all that praise, I had two reservations in reading this
book. One, Ryan talks about whether or not she is still “pro-choice” now that
she has become a Christian. And it isn’t really clear whether the answer is yes
or no or why exactly she has come to her new conclusion. There’s a big drumroll
and then only a few pages dedicated to the topic. She’s an intelligent woman
with a law degree, and I wanted more–both from a theological perspective and
from a legal one. I know, I know, ambiguities will always remain with any
intense ethical issue, but this section still left me unsatisfied.

Two, Ryan believes that Jesus loves her. I couldn’t agree
more. And yet, I wondered on occasion whether her relationship with Jesus would
become something bigger. She writes, “God has given me parking places, jeans
that fit, restored friendships, a red v-neck sweater to replace the one I threw
away in anger after some guy told me I looked like Gilligan.” I have no problem
with praying for parking places. And I’m sure Trish would agree with me that God
invites us to pray for a whole lot more, and to participate in work that He is
doing that goes beyond our individual needs. But I still wondered whether the
grandeur of God got lost amidst the intimacy of her relationship with Jesus.

On the whole, A Maze
of Grace is an easy read, written in prose that is witty, funny, casual and
accessible. Kind of like a spinach salad. With yummy dressing and some bacon.
Tasty. And good for you.