Loved as I Am: An Invitation to Conversion, Healing, and Freedom through Jesus

When Sr. Miriam James Heidland’s life as a successful college athlete proved unfulfilling, she went searching for something deeper and ended up falling in love with Jesus. By charting her own journey toward wholeness, Heidland invites young Catholics to pursue their own relationship with Jesus.

Although originally full of athletic ambition and goals for a career in sports news, Heidland was transformed in a very slow but deep way during her undergraduate years, moving from party girl to bride of Christ. In Loved as I Am: An Invitation to Conversion, Healing, and Freedom through Jesus, Heidland helps readers learn from her experience of seeking love in the wrong places and instead finding it in Christ. She shares her struggles―learning she was adopted, battling alcoholism, and healing from childhood sexual abuse―as signs of hope that anyone who desires to know Christ can find him and be loved intimately by him in return. By bringing readers into Heidland’s healing process, Loved as I Am provides a gentle and subtle template for finding peace and freedom in Jesus.

Sr. Miriam James Heidland, SOLT, is a popular Catholic speaker, cohost of the Abiding Together podcast, and author of the bestselling books Loved as I Am, Restore: A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation, and Behold: A Guided Advent Journal for Prayer and Meditation, which have sold more than 165,000 copies collectively.

A former Division I athlete who had a radical conversion and joined the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity in 1998, Heidland has shared her story on EWTN’s The Journey Home, at numerous SEEK and Steubenville conferences, and through many other outlets.

She is affiliated with the ministries of Friends of the Bridegroom and the John Paul II Healing Center in leading healing retreats for priests and religious sisters across the United States.

Heidland earned a master’s degree in theology from the Augustine Institute and speaks extensively on the topics of conversion, authentic love, forgiveness, and healing.

Christopher West is a renowned educator, best-selling author, cultural commentator, and popular theologian who specializes in St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. He is cofounder, president, and senior lecturer of the Theology of the Body Institute.