2024 The Gospel Coalition Book Award of Distinction - First-Time Author
2024 Christianity Today Book Award Finalist - Christian Living/Spiritual Formation
All I ever wanted was The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever, the panacea, the cure for what plagued me. From those first moments when I tasted the earthy pulp of a psilocybin mushroom, it was love. Psychedelics were my sacrament. They shot me into cathedral vaults. The promise of eternal life through chemicals glittered seductively, but hid a yawning abyss.
The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever tells my story of psychedelic devastation and spiritual rescue. It chronicles my trajectory from acid enthusiast to soul-weary druggie to psychedelic refugee. I finally found The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever—in the last place I thought to look.
Ashley Lande’s own journey of seeking meaning through psychedelics is a fascinating and eye-opening account of one person’s search for enlightenment. Ashley found that her search eventually led her to the foot of the cross. It’s a story that is brilliantly written and conveyed with remarkable honesty and insight. I was hooked! In a generation that is thirsting for an experience of something transcendent, this book will show you why that hunger can only be truly satisfied by Jesus Christ.
—Justin Brierley, broadcaster; speaker; author and host of The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God
“Ashley Lande speaks into today’s meaning crisis with bracing honesty, wisdom, and compassion. Her vivacious prose takes the reader to hell and back, always aiming for the light. A testimony to remember!
—Bethel McGrew, journalist and social critic
Reading Ashley Lande’s journey from the world of psychedelics to Christian faith felt like passing through a foreign country: fascinating and disorienting. And yet, the story enveloped my attention in ways that felt so familiar, exposing my hubris and desperation, hope and fear, longing and loss. Lande’s memoir is a story about the ways we try to find and flee from God, and what it looks like, finally, to fall into his arms.
—Justin Ariel Bailey, associate professor of theology, Dordt University; author of Reimagining Apologetics and Interpreting Your World
Ashley’s story of redemption is one only an amazing God could write. With beautiful prose and invaluable perspective, this book takes you on an incredible journey you will not want to miss. It’s an unlikely story where God gets the glory, just as he should!
—Ericka Andersen, author of Reason to Return: Why Women Need the Church and the Church Needs Women
Ashley Lande is a writer and artist based in rural Kansas, where she lives with her husband, Steven, and three children.