From the author of Ragamuffin Gospel comes Patched Together

From the author of ‘The Ragamuffin Gospel’ and ‘The Furious Longing Of God’ comes ‘Patched Together: A Story of My Story’. Honest, compelling and profoundly moving, ‘Patched Together’ is set to be one of the most treasured books to come from the pen of one of the church’s most treasured voices.

‘Patched Together’ combines two vintage Manning stories: The Boy Who Cried Abba and Journey of the Prodigal. And while there is new material added to the mix, the result is vintage Manning, reverberating with the message that God loves us just as we are, not as we should be. It’s a revolutionary message for an age obsessed with status updates.

‘Patched Together’ tells the story of Willie Juan, a man who experiences both brokenness and restoration, a man who knows what it is to see the beauty of both his healing and his scars.

Willie Juan struggles to belong, learning early in life that he doesn’t fit in. His life changes when he meets the mysterious Man of Sorrows, through whom he finds healing and the ability to forgive those who abandoned him.

As Willie Juan becomes a successful artist, he learns another painful lesson: that one of the hindrances to the spiritual life is amnesia. Consumed by material wealth and fame, he loses sight of what matters most, ultimately finding his way back to restoration and redemption.

Brennan himself has been candid in revealing the scar tissue of his own troubled life, probing those scars in his writing. For more than forty years he has worked passionately to share with others the intensity of God’s love.

"‘Patched Together’ is a very special story to me,” he says in an author’s note. “It is, in many ways, my story.”

The book is divided into three sections: Morning, Noon, and Night. Brennan is in the Night of his own life, he says: “I’ve grown old and feeble and almost blind. For years now, I’ve written about how much Abba loves ragamuffins. Sometimes, these days, I wrestle to believe what I wrote. Knowing that you’re reading and wrestling along with me means more than you know.”

At 75 years old, Manning has touched the lives of millions who are drawn to his message about the wildness and intensity of God’s love. Influential Christian writers and musicians count themselves among his fans, including Amy Grant (who wrote the foreword), Max Lucado, Eugene Peterson, Richard Rohr, Michael Card and Michael W Smith. And with Manning having recently resumed his speaking engagements after a bout of ill health, interest in his work is at an all time high.