The Fiction Story:
Elizabeth Gunnar has come full circle. She moves back home to the city where she grew up and accepts a job teaching in the preparatory school that she attended. She re-finds old friends and even begins to see an old flame that her heart had once burned for.
But with all of this seemingly happy reviving also comes the secret that she had to hold for so many years.
A popular teacher abruptly leaves his teaching post do to a heart attack but Elizabeth and her small group of friends know the truth about Professor Dutton's sudden departure. They only wonder if he is still alive. This is not a mystery. It is a drama focusing on Elizabeth's exploration of her old life, asking large and deep questions along the way. As past secrets come to light, the book description promises that Elizabeth finds renewal from a most unusual source.
The Gospel Story:
To be sure, while renewal may come through many things, true renewal itself can only come from one place. For so long Elisabeth has been trying to find her renewal from the paper-thin pages of poetry and literature, perhaps seeking answers to questions that her favorite authors only knew how to ask more beautifully than her. She had even formed her first notion of faith from her favorite author. Something she called "moments of being."
From time to time throughout the story, Elizabeth is reminded that she had not had one of those "moments" in years. Not since the departure of Professor Dutton. When Someone brings up a question about God she is reminded that she has not so much as thought of God in ages; when one of her students begins to pray she realizes that she didn't even thought to pray; when she sees her father reading the Bible she can't even remember where hers is.
Her father was reading the book of Hosea and tried to tell her the story. The profit of God loved a prostitute named Gomer. Despite all of the humiliation and pain she put him through, Hosea ultimately seeks her out, finds her as a destitute slave and buys her back. True to form Elizabeth is only thinking of a boyfriend who has returned to his unfaithful ex-wife.
Favorite line: "I don't think we have to go anywhere," I repeated. "I think He comes to us."
The line was a response to a question of how to know that God exists and where to find him if he does. It was the most impactful line I remember from the book because it made me think of the un-matchable difference between God's sovereignty and man's depravity. In deed, there is no place a man can go and find God. Faith is no natural attribute of man's, but as the Bibles says, no one can come unless the Father draws them. John 6:44
The story had many good moments (correlation not intended) like that, and those moments are what I liked most about the book.
What I did not like about the story is that the extent of Elizabeth Gunnar's faith, originally and at the conclusion, was described and held up by the euphemism "moments of being," which itself was first described as feelings of warm light. In other words, warm, fuzzy, surreal feelings. To this reader, it comes off as a dim and shadowy description of a real faith. More dis-likable was that Elizabeth was shown as having drifted away from it and finally drifting back... from one soft glow to the next. Moths do that.
Hey Elizabeth! What about the love He has for us like Hosea loved Gomer? Moths are not saved or even renewed by the warm fuzzy things they bump up against, but Gomers are when they are bought with a high price. Oh well, I still recommend this book. It is a great story with a lot of good moments as well as a good overall message. As promised in the description, Elizabeth eventually completes the circle back around to the renewal of those "moments of being" in a manner consistent with John 6:44 I only feel that the reader may get more out of the story than the main character did.
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Until the next book, remember Christ the author of salvation and the reader of our hearts.
