Grace Notes, by John Cheyenne Wilbur

As James Baldwin wrote, “You don’t have a home until you leave it.” This isn’t your grandma’s faith journey. It’s Christianity with the gloves off—blisteringly honest, irreverently soulful, and deeply human. Grace Notes is a spiritual, coming-of-age epic. From a panic attack at a high school party to an emotional reckoning in Jerusalem, Jerry’s path to belief doesn’t follow tradition—it shatters it. Along the way, he stumbles through trauma, seminary, sex, activism, burnout, mysticism, and piano solos that speak when words fail. He loses the trail more than once, but never stops searching for home—spiritual, emotional, and physical. Marked by raw confession, unexpected grace, and gut-punching moments of revelation, Grace Notes explores what it means to confront your past, embrace your brokenness, and find God in the places you least expect. For readers who are spiritual but skeptical, wounded but seeking, this is the story of how one man’s messy, aching search for belonging leads to belief and the home for which he has always yearned.