Month: September 2011

I’ve been fortunate over the past couple of months to read some great books with inspiring stories and intriguing characters. People who have taken risks to help others or overcome tragic adversities. It’s made me wonder, what am I made of? Would I have the kind of courage it takes to harbor a Jewish child during the Holocaust or would I have shut myself off from the truth like so many others did? Could I have survived on a raft out on the Pacific for a month or would I have given myself over to the sharks?

I guess it comes down to something I read in my Bible study this morning. When facing adversity, how much will I try and do myself, and how much will I turn over to God? The Israelites were told to collect  2 omers of manna each morning, and somehow, every family gathered just enough for each day. If they tried to save it for another day, the manna would smell rotten and have maggots. Each day they walked outside their tents and gathered what God provided. It sustained them.

I hope that when I’m face with the trials of this life, I will do the same. Wake up every day seek God’s will. Open up my Bible and collect God’s mercy, which is new every morning, and use it to sustain myself. What am I saying? God didn’t promise to provide for his people on certain days, or when times were particularly tough. He promised to give them what they needed every day. And He promises the same to us. Life would be so much easier if I could learn to let go and let God provide.

What makes a great character? What draws us back to a story we’ve read before just so we can revisit a fictional character we’ve begun to think of as a friend? I contemplated that after reading Pride & Prejudice. Although I love Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy in the BBC version, what is it about Jane Austen’s written words that caused me to fall even more in love with the character? I think it’s the insights we’re privy to when we read, rather than watch, a story. In a book we’re allowed inside the character’s mind and so we see exactly what motivated a certain action. It’s a much more intimate interaction, maybe that’s the key.

I also got to thinking about some of my favorite fictional characters and why I love them so much. I like Mr. Darcy because he’s awkward around strangers, like I am. He gets caught up in trying to behave the way he should even when his heart tells him something different. Eventually tho, his heart wins him over and he confesses his feelings to Elizabeth.

I have a couple of characters that I revisit often in books. There’s Ender Wiggin of Ender’s Game and the subsequent series it spawned. But it’s in this first book that I made friends with the lonely, ambitious, brilliant boy who would save the world. I can’t help but root for Fiver and Pippin of Watership Down even though I know how the tale will end since I’ve read it so many times. I weep every time I read about Hadassah’s family perishing in Jerusalem in Francine Rivers’ AVoice in the Wind.

My list could go on and on but I’m wondering about you. Who are the characters you revisit on a regular basis and why? Let me know.