God in Disguise: Losing and finding Jesus at the ends of the earth and the limits of my soul

by Trudy Taylor Smith

While growing up in small-town Texas, Trudy spends her suburban childhood dreaming about a missionary life in a distant country. At the age of twenty-three, Trudy moves to India and sets out to find God in the slum. There, she forms unlikely bonds with her impoverished Muslim neighbors, who become her spiritual guides and surrogate family. But as the chaos and tragedy of her neighbors’ lives spills into her own, Trudy is unprepared for the unraveling of her faith and her sense of self. Yet her overwhelming sense of failure live up to her ideals of compassion and justice leads her deeper—rather than further—into relationship with the God she thought she already knew. This captivating memoir charts Trudy’s journey from certainty into mystery and from a guilt- and fear-based faith into the freedom of God’s unconditional love.

238 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 25, 2017

Reviews

[Gregory Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

“God in Disguise” is Trudy Taylor Smith’s heartfelt account of her spiritual journey from the conventional values of her evangelical upbringing in Texas which emphasized among other things that men were superior to women, and that the U.S. had a manifest and special destiny, to a broad appreciation of the spiritual lives of people of other faiths. She is also very well-schooled in Christian theology, and she describes how her early experiences living and studying abroad in South America, and in Thailand called these ideas into question, particularly how much of her standard of living might be a result of US foreign policy. Later, her experiences while working for a Christian NGO in India for several years and living in an urban slum in a Muslim community expanded her ideas of spirituality to a broader appreciation of the spiritual lives of Muslims and Hindus. She begins to believe that both Muslims and Christians need to reject the harsh elements of fundamentalism, hatred, and anger.
It’s an intense, very difficult life with Smith writing at one point “On any given day, I might find myself laughing out loud, burning with anger, struck with curiousity or wonder, and sad enough to weep.” She gains a new appreciation of God as working through relationship, patience, and compassion. She and her husband encounter injustice, bureaucratic eneptitude and corruption, and commonplace domestic violence, husbands against wives, mothers against children, and they attempt to intervene and help others.
Smith witnesses many injustices against women and reflects on the many inequalities in own society and that in India, too, women are oppressed and sexually objectified by men. Her experiences also leads her to a new discovery that God can also express the feminine, become a “She” in Smith’s prayers and relate to her experiences as a women. She observes, “Pouring out my heart to Her reminded me that God is able to relate fully to my experience as a woman. Ultimately, Smithand her husband leave their work in the slum and settle in Vancouver where they continue their activism for others and their spiritual journey. A skillful writer, Smith has published with the Huffington Post among other journals. Reading this wonderful and heartfelt memoir, one wonders how one’s own ideals measure up and might survive the challenges that this author describes.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought provoking read

I do not often give 5 stars for a book but I found this book to be quite thought provoking. A friend asked me to read it for a book club she was organizing. I had just taken a trip to Mumbai so I was extra interested in the subject matter. I found it incredibly helpful as i sought to articulate some of the experiences I had gone through in Mumbai that left me questioning God’s activity in that city. Specifically, on a spiritual level, I found it comforting and relevant not only in my life since visits Mumbai but as in my life as a foster parent. If I can even relate it somewhat, I found her words/response about her time in the slum similar to my life as I’ve become a foster parent and been a part of the broken system. I would definitely encourage someone who feels burnt out in various arenas in life to read this book.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

An honest, moving account of a physical and interior journey though the brutal realities of poverty in India to discover beauty and love in some of the most unlikely places. Trudy and her husband went to India with a dream of making a difference in the dehumanising poverty and injustice of the world. Their willingness to engage, question and be changed in the process, offer rare insights into third world poverty and a heart that seeks to respond with justice and compassion. The interweaving of the author’s inner world and yearnings, with the challenges and struggles of crippling poverty and injustice offer a rich gift for all of us. Highly recommended.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Melissa Hughes Mora recommended this book to me, and I am grateful!

I enjoy autobiographies in seeking God's wisdom. Her journey of opening her heart and mind to the ways of Jesus just busts up the stringent and fearful upbringing she experienced. God is NOT the fearful dictator! (and not always male or a father figure!) I am so grateful for her, and her courage to put all this it in writing!

I am also amazed at her willingness to live in the slums of India for so many years, with all the diseases, malnutrition, and heartache. Thank you for sharing this with us - it is an experience not many of us can or would willingly do for growth.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author does a fantastic job of depicting the reality of the lives of people in one poor community in India. Neither disparaging nor romanticized, but given the honor of the full complexity of their lives both good and bad and neither of the above. But the driving narrative is her own story of spiritual self-discovery as it plays out among the lives of the poor.