Christian romance novels! There are thousands on the market. Many are trashy, some are worth reading, and a few are outstanding!Today’s generation loves action so many novelists open their story with a “Kiss-kiss, bang-bang, hallelujah!” as someone aptly put it. Well, I can’t and won’t begin my novels in this way. So, no, I’m not making millions as a writer and I’m sure, never will.
“Your books will fall through the cracks,” one friend warned. “They’re too broad for the conservative and too narrow for the liberal.” I groaned when I heard his remark, fearing it was only too true and then comforted myself there were probably very many readers who had “fallen through the cracks” themselves.
So with that rather lengthy introduction, let me present my most recent novel: “Love me and let me go.” Using the present tense, I let five of my main characters tell the story—Cherry, Angus, Dennis and others. And while the actual events are not taken from my own life, this novel is in many ways truly biographical. My heroine feels about many things just as I have felt and asks the same questions. The issues she faces are those I have faced, if not in my own life, then in the lives of those close to me.
“How can someone so right be so wrong?” my heroine asks, speaking of her devout yet controlling father who, after realizing the pain he causes his family by mistaking the voice of God for his own voice, he admits, in an agony of grief, “I have been the victim of my own sanctity!”
Yes, “Love me and let me go,” is a Christian romance novel, that is, it has romance, is Christian and is fictitious. And some of you who have read our books on prayer, or on “God and suffering,” or on Christian parenting etc. etc. may not be attracted to Love me and let me go. But, if you find it almost impossible to “love and, at the same time to let go” someone dear to you—to allow them to be their own person and find their own feet spiritually—then give my book a try. Or if you are a child who loves your parents, respects them for their Christian devotion and yet are desperately seeking to find your own feet spiritually, then maybe my heroine’s path to true freedom will help you grow into God’s will for your life.
This Christian novel isn’t perfect. There are many more brilliant books on the market. But I guarantee it will make you think. Don’t look for pat answers, but as you read, trace the thread of hope running through the warp and woof of life, woven by God’s own hand as He makes a masterpiece out of broken threads and knotted yarn, knowing that what he has done for Cherry, and Angus, and Dennis, he can do for you.
Many of the books in our Christian Book Store are compiled from the lives of saints and how they reconciled,in their lives, the idea of “God and suffering.” One such book is Loneliness, the second in the “Call Back Series.” In addition to dealing with the sorrow and loneliness caused by bereavement, it also shows how Christian workers, many of them single, have faced loneliness in the midst of their busy life which almost overwhelmed them.
‘Lonely! lonely! lonely!
In the heart of the mighty hills
And I sigh for the dear, home faces
And fancy a thousand ills.
‘A dog! A friend! A loved one!
Or anything that has life;
But I wait alone for the answer
And alone I face the strife.
‘The work, the care, the struggle,
I greet with a thankful heart;
But to be alone in the mountain—
That is the hardest part.
‘Lonely! Lonely! Lonely!
In the light of the waning moon;
Dear God in Heaven have mercy
And send a friend to me soon!’”
—Used by permission of K.M.H.A. (Loneliness, p.p. 15-16.)
Emma Booth, daughter of William and Catherine, founders of the Salvation Army, also experienced loneliness as she worked for Christ, not in the mountains, but in the heart of busy London. And then she thought of Christ and was comforted. “I was thinking last night,” she writes, “it was not the thorn or the spear which made Calvary hardest to bear. It must have been the keen sense of loneliness that made the cup the bitterest. And yet, we know He was not alone.”
One of the most popular books in the “Call Back Series” which is available in our Christian Book Store, is Frustration, the third in this series. I have heard many a person exclaim, “Frustration? That’s me. I’m frustrated!” And perhaps they echo what many of us feel on a regular basis. We live in a fallen world and life constantly frustrates us all in one way or another.
Take John Wesley for example. On pages twenty to twenty-two, you can read the poem he penned after his disappointment over Grace Murray, the woman he loved yet never married. The circumstances behind this disappointment may be debated, but it remains a fact that he was planning to marry her and owing to the interference (some think timely, some cruel) of his brother and other well-meaning friends, he returned from a trip to find her married off to one of his outstanding preachers, John Bennet. Perhaps, to be honest, frustration by no means fully describes what John felt when he discovered that he had lost his beloved. Yet it is certainly true that he had been frustrated in his hopes and desires and so pens this poem. A few stanzas are quoted below:
“Amazed I cried, ‘Surely for me
A help prepared of Heaven thou art!
Thankful I take the gift from Thee
O Lord, and naught on earth shall part
The souls that Thou has joined above
In lasting bonds of sacred love.’
“Abashed she spoke, ‘O what is this?
Far above all my boldest hope!
Can God beyond my utmost wish,
Thus lift His worthless handmaid up?
This only could my soul desire!
This only had I dared require!’
“From that glad hour, with growing love
Heaven’s latest, dearest, gift I view’d;
While pleased each moment to improve,
We urged our way with strength renewed,
Our one desire, our common aim,
T’ extol our gracious Master’s Name.
“Such was the friend, than life more dear,
Whom in one luckless, baleful hour,
(Forever mentioned with a tear!)
The tempters unresisted power
(O the unutterable smart!)
Tore from my inly-bleeding heart!
“Unsearchable Thy judgments are,
O Lord! A bottomless abyss!
Yet sure Thy love, Thy guardian care,
O’er all Thy works extended is!
Why didst Thou the blessing send?
Or why thus snatch away my friend?. . .
“What Thou hast done I know not now;
Suffice I shall hearafter know!
Beneath Thy chast’ning hand I bow;
That still I live to Thee I owe.
O teach thy deeply-humbled son,
Father, to say, ‘Thy will be done!’”
Among other books in our Christian Book Store, the “Call Back Series” which deals with the subject of “God and Suffering,” has proved a comfort and inspiration to those going through trials and suffering of various kinds. The second book in the series is called Loneliness and has been a great blessing in the lives of saints, twenty-first century saints, striving to walk in the steps of their Master.
Before Edwin Harvey’s death in December 1983, the first book in this series, Illness, had been already published.
Loneliness was the first book to be completed after her husband’s death. Often, sitting at her typewriter, the tears would roll down her cheeks and splash onto the keyboard as she wrote about those who went through great periods of loneliness, for she herself, was sharing in their experiences. Her partner of forty-five years was no longer there by her side and her personal loneliness was intense. This is why this book and its successor, Frustration, carry with them a particular blessing to the reader. Every word written came from the heart.
This book covers many aspects of loneliness–bereavement, through which Lillian was then passing, being just one of them. Listen to the words of Clara Simpson, a poetess, whose husband died as a result of a terrible accident:
“Oh, has He planned it right when darkness falls,
And all one’s world which looked so fair and bright
Has faded out of sight, and sorrow reigns?
He’s planned it right.”
“God is able to use you,” Clara writes, “according to His power and not according to your weakness.” And so, in the midst of her grief, she penned poems that have comforted and inspired many. Read the following, then be encouraged that while, at times, the words “God and suffering” may seem an enigma to you in your sorrow, He does know your grief and He does care:
“Oh Father, do You know when hearts are aching:
When summer days have fled and north winds blow,
Skies heavy, gray, and oh so dark and lonely?
‘My child, I know.’
“Oh Father, do You care when days are empty,
Empty of all that made this world so fair—
When blessings once so precious, now have faded?
‘My child, I care.’
“Oh Father, must we trust when ties are broken,
When loves of earth once strong and deep have gone,
And strange, unwelcome things beset our pathway?
My child, trust on.’
‘Father, I will believe; oh, keep me faithful
Through life’s long day till setting of the sun;
And may I hear when dawns the eternal morning,
‘My child, well done.’”
–Used by permission—Joyful News, Cliff College
(Loneliness, page70)
The name “Frances Ridley Havergal” is known to most Christians. Her hymn, “Take My Life and Let It Be” is sung in churches all over our land while her poems and writings are available in nearly every Christian Book Store. Yet perhaps few know that Frances’ doctors declared her to be extremely sensitive to physical pain, much more so than the average person. She very frequently experienced prolonged periods of illness and nervous exhaustion. Frequently set aside from public work, Frances came to view these times as blessings in disguise.
“I take this pain, Lord Jesus
From Thine own hand,
The strength to bear it bravely
Thou wilt command.
I am too weak for effort
So let me rest,
In hush of sweet submission,
On Thine own breast.
“I take this pain, Lord Jesus,
As proof indeed
That thou art watching closely
My truest need:
That Thou, my Good Physician,
Art watching still;
That all Thy own good pleasure
Thou wilt fulfill.
“’This Thy dear hand, O Savior,
That presseth sore,
The hand that bears the nail-prints
Forevermore,
And now beneath its shadow,
Hidden by Thee,
The pressure only tells me
Thou lovest me.”
—F.R. Havergal (Illness pp. 23-24).
In our Christian Book Store online, you will find a great variety of books compiled or written by Edwin and Lillian Harvey. Among them, is the ¨Call Back Series.¨Shortly after they began to compile books from their extensive files, Edwin and Lillian Harvey realized the need to address the subject of God and suffering. Why did He allow suffering into the lives of the saints? How did they cope? What fruit did it produce in their lives? What forms of suffering do we, as God’s children and members of the human race, have to go through?
Perusing their files, they discovered a poem that inspired the title for these books on this subject of God and Suffering entitled ¨Call Back.¨ Here it is:
Call Back
If you have gone a little way ahead of me, call back—
‘Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track;
And if, perchance, faith’s light is dim, because the oil is low,
Your call will guide my lagging course as wearily I go.
Call back and tell me that He went with you into the storm;
Call back, and say He kept you when the forest’s roots were torn;
That when the heavens thundered and the earthquake shook the hill,
He bore you up and held you when the very air was still.
O Friend, call back and tell me, for I cannot see your face;
They say it glows with triumph and your feet bound in the race;
But there are mists between us, and my spirit eyes are dim,
And I cannot see the glory, though I long for word of Him.
But if you’ll say He heard you when your prayer was but a cry,
And if you’ll say He saw you through the night’s sin-darkened sky—
If you have gone a little way ahead, O friend, call back—
‘Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track.
The first book Edwin and Lillian Harvey compiled on “God and Suffering” was “Call Back No. One” or “Illness.” This is available in our Christian Book Store. It explores the lives of saints in the past and how they coped with illness which God allowed into their lives. What happened when they were not healed? Were they plunged into despair? Did they meekly accept their lot?
In perusing the lives of saints, Edwin and Lillian discovered that not only did they learn to profit from their experiences but they “call back” to those of us who are going through similar trials, to tell us to keep the faith, to make it to the end.
The book opens with extracts from the life of Catherine Booth, the Mother of the Salvation Army who battled with ill health all her life. “Try to rest in His will, dear friend,” she writes, “because there is nowhere else to rest. He knows why these wearisome months of suffering are appointed to me, and amidst all my depression, and sometimes distress, the devil shall not drive me from this one refuge—that He does all in love. I know it, I believe it, and pray that I may not frustrate His design.” Illness page 8.
Years later, another of God’s saints, Mrs. Howard Taylor, when laid aside for weeks on account of ill health, writes in a similar strain: “I do not know just how, but in the suffering and the quietness (enforced) of the past two weeks, He has taken possession afresh of my whole being, so that everything looks different and nothing is difficult any more.” Ibid page 51.
Elizabeth Fry, the fearless Quakeress who did much to improve conditions in England’s prisons, also found herself laid aside from her labors through ill health. “I am permitted to think,” she writes, “that perhaps this state of bodily infirmity is permitted for my mental rest—that I may retire a little from the world and its business.” Ibid page 57.
