Author Rev. Susan Hudson Mcbride’s New Book, "When God Goes Missing," is a Powerful Memoir of the Author’s Upbringing and Spiritual Revelations Amid the Jim Crow South

Nashville, TN, February 18, 2026 --(PR.com)-- Rev. Susan Hudson McBride has completed her new book, “When God Goes Missing: Looking for Meaning Through the Eyes of a Southern Child”: a deeply personal and resonant memoir that follows the author’s attempt to make sense of the world around her while witnessing the hypocrisy of those preaching about God while filling their congregation with hate and bias.

Rev. Susan Hudson McBride is an ordained pastor to the unchurched. Her journey began with growing up in the Church of Christ in Alabama and Georgia during the time of the Civil Rights era, the Vietnam War, the Stonewall riots, and the battle for women’s rights. She spent her childhood muddling through the disconnect between the church’s teachings and what was happening in the larger world. It was during that period she realized humanity was God’s gift to be explored and embraced.

“Growing up in the Jim Crow South was a withering way to start childhood,” writes Rev. McBride. “No one explained how to navigate the back-and-forth of the love versus hatred teachings of the fundamentalist church this child attended with her family. There was no getting used to the confusion brought on by a community with its rigid rules to live by. For years, the contradictory teachings of the church saddled this young mind, trying to make sense of anything to do with God. It was the outspoken woman who took care of her and cleaned her mama’s house that began an education on what was real. This truth-telling soul guided the child in her care by sharing what was going on in places all over the south.

“By the time the child was in her teens, she had already begun a journey that would take her past the suffocating beliefs of her church and family and onward toward the life-giving message of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. It was clothed in an act of prayer that teachers would show up. The people she met were gifts she didn’t see coming. But there they were at every turn, a parade of beautiful beings holding out their hands to help her cross over to sanity. Healing took place over years of prayerful reworking of a bad theology. What she came to understand along the way is how embedded faulty thinking works its way into everyday decisions and perspectives on life. Being part of a community of thoughtful people helped make sense of the incompatible.

“What got her through decades of generational trauma was writing. It began with spoken Word, stories, and then along came the book. ‘When God Goes Missing: Looking for Meaning Through the Eyes of a Southern Child’ is the culmination of a long journey from there to here. The stories were worth telling and meant to reach others in need of healing from the shrapnel of their childhoods.”

Published by Covenant Books of Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, Rev. Susan Hudson McBride’s new book is a moving account that offers readers an intimate reflection on the revolutionary act that compassionate faith can be, as well the strength it takes to shed the destructive beliefs one is often taught from a young age. Emotionally candid and thought-provoking, “When God Goes Missing” is sure to resonate with readers from all walks of life, leaving a lasting impression long after the final page.

Readers can purchase “When God Goes Missing: Looking for Meaning Through the Eyes of a Southern Child” at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes store, Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Covenant Books is an international Christian owned and operated publishing house based in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. Covenant Books specializes in all genres of work which appeal to the Christian market. For additional information or media inquiries, contact Covenant Books at 843-507-8373.