“I was dirty, sweaty, and tired after 36 hours on the train to Switzerland when I met Julie for the first time.” This memoir begins when Hilde unexpectedly falls in love with a woman, a totally new and exciting experience for a 22-year-old Norwegian who grew up in a traditional Christian context. Discovering the delight of being in love and realizing that she is a lesbian makes her feel whole for the first time and takes her on a journey into unknown, fierce, and transformative landscapes.

She shares her experiences of coming out, the pressures to live closeted and to reject her sexuality until she finds the courage and strength to reclaim herself again as a whole person. She falls in love in the Swiss alps, studies liberation, feminist, and lesbian theology in Colorado, and then returns to Norway, believing she has a calling to ministry in the church. Honestly, she reflects on the cost of being a minister in a discriminating and prejudiced church and how a timid and reserved lesbian became a visible and outspoken activist, in the church, in the media, and internationally. Beyond it all, this is a story of faith, sometimes strong and life embracing and at other times, vulnerable, broken, and much smaller than a mustard seed.

Hilde’s memoir is a story of queer faith and activism, love and friendship, courage, delight, brokenness, and anger, and in the end, it turns into a realization of how God’s queer grace transforms and affirms us in unexpected and radical ways.