Deciding to walk away from God did not come easily or quickly. Nor did the decision to return.

These kinds of tumultuous events feel as if they happen impulsively, spontaneously. But, if we take the time to look back at patterns, we find the seeds of the decision sown years before the actual action. This was not a book medical fiction writer Lin Wilder planned to write. Ever. Until she remembered a promise made to a friend years before.

Faith and all which accompanies religion like regular church attendance and a belief that there is something greater here, someone present, informs our decisions and choices, even our goals. Just so, its absence widens all boundaries. More and more is acceptable.

This, at times, brutally honest story of the reasons for Wilder's walk away from God, then years later, return, cannot fail to provoke and challenge. Her decision to reveal intimate and painful details of the life lived during the years she refers to as 'lost' will cause even the most devoutly faithful reader to take a peek at the shadows of the self we hide from the world and from ourselves.