When the priest learns you’re a reader (basically by trade), you’re in trouble. You can almost see the list of books scrolling through his mind at that moment, not wanting to bombard you with too much right away. Even though you would read that endless list of books. (Don’t tell him I said that. Not yet…)

After narrowing down the endless options—and after the Bible itself—he offered Scott & Kimberly Hahn’s Rome Sweet Home. A conversion story? Of course I’m going to be into this, doubly so because they were previously anti-Catholic, Bible-thumping Evangelicals.

We love telling our conversion stories. We love sharing how “stupid” we were, or the depths of our grief before coming to God. And we love hearing them, too, because it brings a sense of pride. Here are our friends, finally learning the truth. But I’m reading this book, and I’m also laughing. Because each conversion story is different, with the spectrum of human experience and emotion, but they’re also all the same.

future convert: Let me share this awesome discovery I made!
Catholic friend: …that is literally what the Church teaches.
future convert: NO IT’S NOT

I’m only halfway through this book. I haven’t even reached their conversion yet. But I’m already so into this. Because it’s their unique story, with all their unique doubts and struggles… but it’s also so, so familiar.