Confounded by life's setbacks, many Christians are tempted to welcome expediency rather than the more costly response of embracing pain, uncertainty and doubt. Nevertheless, God can be seen as systematically using the most disquieting of circumstances to patiently reel believers back into a more intimate relationship with him. Christianity Today
contributor Zoba (Day of Reckoning
and Generation 2K) exposes the realities of living in a pain-ridden world while sharing lessons she learned both as one of four sisters growing up with an alcoholic father and as an initially naïve pastor's wife. Today, she says, she makes sense of issues involving life and faith by looking into her past. Zoba has the heart of a reporter, and yet she communicates in a particularly whimsical style, even when depicting the most somber of scenarios. Hilarity generally wins out as Zoba recounts episodes of laboring against the unwritten code of the established yearly church visit by Santa at Christmas, or of how she re-emerged in the good graces of the congregation after catching an opponent who attempted to bat out of order during softball playoffs. Peppered throughout the jovial reminiscences are searching, heartfelt entreaties that invite introspection and the courage to begin one's own journey of Christian discovery. Unfortunately, the last third of the book fizzles and does not quite measure up to Zoba's prior, more memorable offerings. (May)
