and the Shofar Blew

 and the Shofar Blew
by Francine Rivers
441 pages hardback
2003

Recently I was at a missions conference and while talking with a couple of ladies I had just met and the subject turned to good books.  The novel The Atonement Child by Francine Rivers was highly praised.  Excited about getting a good recommendation, I returned back to Houston and looked for it at the church library; it was not there so I chose and the Shofar Blew instead. 

Before I got through the first chapter I felt like I had read the book before (there is not too many stories out there that have a zealous Christian leader named Paul whose son was Timothy and Timothy's mom's name was Euny (short for Eunice) and Lois as a grandmother).  As the ending did not stand out to me, I filped to the back of the book, read a few pages and decided that I never finished it.  A few more chapters of reading made me guess why.  It is not a very happy story.  Actually, for most of the pages it is down-right discouraging.  But as timing would have it, I started a migraine (sometimes if the headache subside a bit, reading helps to pass the time, especially through the nights when the pain is too great for sleep to come), anyway, I worked my way through about 15 painful years of what happens to a life of a family and community when a pastor looses sight of growing God's church and grows his own power-hungry ego instead. 

To her credit, Francine Rivers' characters are authentic and consistent throughout the story and as always in her books, redemption's theme rings true.  For that I'm grateful.  But it does not make me any too excited to be a pastor's wife.  But then again, my husband is not Paul and I do not play the piano, so if that is what God wants of me, I pray I have ears to hear and a heart to obey.

This is probably not going to be the first book would recommend, yet I do hope to get the chance to read The Atonement Child someday.  I have read several books by Francine Rivers through the years (A Voice in the Wind, An Echo in the Darkness, As Sure as the Dawn, Leota's Garden, Redeeming Love, The Last Sin Eater) and each of these stories, with wide range of settings and plots, captivated me immensely.  If you have not read a Francine Rivers novel, pick one up, but be fore-warned they are not for the faint of heart.