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Hard Faith
A Final Memoir
by Ray Lopez
Foreword by Paula Gill Lopez
Imprint: Resource Publications
Ray Lopez is an evangelist, writer, and poet. He also works as a mitigation specialist in federal death penalty cases after retiring in 2016 from a twenty-six-year career as a federal probation officer. Born in Brooklyn in 1959 and raised on Long Island during the sixties and seventies, he journeyed through racism, Catholicism, the counterculture, alcoholism, drug addiction, hospitalization, and jail to find hope in Christ. He earned his master’s degree from U.C. Berkeley in English in 1988 and has only recently returned to creative writing. Hard Faith is his third memoir, and he is presently working on his first novel, The Painter. Visit his website, www.memoirofasmallmoment.org, for additional information.
“Hard Faith is the often turbulent, sometimes tragic but always life-affirming story of Ray Lopez: probation officer, record breaking weightlifter, recovered addict, loving husband and father. His is a story about the power of faith to overcome our greatest obstacles, to persist against all odds, and, in persisting, find both meaning and redemption in our lives. Told with power, insight, wisdom, and grace, this memoir is a work of serious importance, and Lopez is among the finest Christian writers of our time.”
—James Brown, author of The Los Angeles Diaries, Apology to the Young Addict, and This River
“Powerful stories of lives lost to ALS are all too common. In our mission to end ALS, our organization recently announced an audacious goal to make ALS a livable disease by 2030. We are grateful to Ray for capturing the spirit of those afflicted with this terrible disease and for his family’s long support of our Ride to Defeat ALS in Massachusetts. Together, we will end ALS.”
—John Hedstrom, Executive Director, ALS Association, MA Chapter
“Ray’s journey of faith is ‘hard faith’ because life’s challenges can be hard, perplexing, and even cruel. . . . Hard faith is God’s persistent or even hard pursuit of a relationship with humans where nothing can keep his transforming power from impacting them. The God Ray reads about in the Scriptures becomes real through this personal journey.”
—Vincent Carbone, teacher, author, and artist
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