An encouraging book for fellow seekers, doubters, and questioners who still want to foster an active and deeply felt faith.

All her life, Julia Rocchi has searched for the stillness, focus, and community she felt would connect her with something real, powerful, and greater than herself—something like God. But traditional religion, often consumed by its certainties, sometimes fails at helping us find what we deeply desire. So many of us want to find a new way. Could it be that faith is instead a conversation we carry on in questions?

From a place of questioning faith comes Amen?, a collection of personal prayers and essays for practicing penitents and devoted doubters. With fresh imagery and prose to help you pause, this book encourages our hesitant hopes and welcomes us to admit doubt, invite joy, and grapple with mystery. From Julia’s story about learning her brother was an atheist to her prayer about envisioning the love of her life, and from her reflection on trying (and failing) to be a social justice warrior to her experience waking up laughing, you’ll enter into a space of discovery and transformation. Journey along as Julia asks, “Do I gotta have faith?” “How do I define the relationship?” and “You want me to do what?” and see what happens when we stop, listen, and set a table for the questions.

Amen? is an engaging, empathetic rumination of the nature of belief—and its reverberations in the everyday—that offers readers comfort, challenge, and release on their quests to encounter God.

Julia Rocchi writes prose, poetry, prayers, and a lot of thank-you notes. With an MA in Writing from Johns Hopkins University, she has garnered multiple story publications and honors, including First Place in the Saturday Evening Post’s Great American Fiction Contest. Julia also works in nonprofit marketing, facilitates gatherings, and performs improv comedy. As an ENFJ, Enneagram 2, and Cancer sign, she’s never met a personality indicator she disagreed with. Julia lives in Arlington, Virginia, with her family. Visit juliarocchi.com to follow her blog or follow her on social media.