a bookshelf that takes up the entire wall, made of light brown wood, filled with books of different colors

Books about Spirituality and Disability

The books in this section are memoirs and personal theological reflections on life and faith in the presence of disability. The authors offer wisdom and guidance from the challenges and changes they have experienced in their lives.

book cover of To Be Made Well with the title words in white over a blue watercolor background

Amy Julia Becker, To Be Made Well: An Invitation to Wholeness, Healing, and Hope (Herald Press, 2022)

The author is the mother of a young adult with down syndrome, and in this book she explores the many aspects of healing while drawing on the biblical accounts of Jesus’ healing work.

Julia Watts Belser, Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole (Beacon, 2023). 

This book focuses on fresh readings of the Bible to paint a portrait of what it means to be disabled and one of God’s beloved. Belser delves deep into sacred literature, braiding the insights of disabled, feminist, Black, and queer thinkers with her own experiences as a queer disabled Jewish feminist.

book cover with loving our own bones written in purple against a yellow background with a drawing of an orange tree in the background
book cover with title over turquoise background with an image of a rid and white coral in the bottom half of the page

William Gaventa, Disability and Spirituality: Recovering Wholeness (Baylor University Press, 2018)

Contesting the assumptions that separate disability and spirituality, Gaventa shows that the quest to understand disability inevitably leads from historical and scientific models into the world of spirituality–to the ways that values, attitudes, and beliefs shape our understanding of the meaning of disability.

Amy Kenny, My Disability Is Divine: A Joyful Witness That Defies Ableist Nonsense (Baker 2026)

This book offers a dynamic theological meditation on the beauty and brilliance of disabled lives. Drawing from Scripture, history, and disability culture, she explores ways that disability reveals divine creativity and presence; how Scripture celebrates disabled bodyminds; and why access, interdependence, and joy are central to the community of creation.

book cover of my disability is divine with a cosmic landscape in the background in shades of orange, blue and white with clouds, stars, a rainbow and a nebula
book cover of everything happens for a reason. Text is in white with blue painted background, and gray words behind

Kate Bowler, Everything Happens for A Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved (Random House, 2019)

Written by a professor at Duke Divinity School who comes to terms with a sudden diagnosis of stage IV colon cancer, this book examines our assumptions about why bad things happen to good people.

David Heflin, Purpose in Pain: Rediscovering God’s Purpose Through the Pain of Chronic Illness (Wipf and Stock, 2026)

This book addresses questions about God’s presence in the midst of pain and finding purpose in life by framing the chronic illness journey within the biblical story of loss and restoration.

book cover of purpose in pain, two halves of the page are brown and blue-green. a tree in the center is half brown and half green
book cover of detour with a paved road through scrubland in the bottom half of the page
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Cam Taylor, Detour: A Roadmap for When Life Gets Rerouted (Infocus Publishing, 2017)

Cam Taylor’s story is one of a personal journey dealing with the health struggles, emotional impact, and sense of loss he and his wife, Vicky, faced after a traumatic motorcycle accident.