Friday Fiction: What are you reading?

Since I am a fiction writer, it probably goes without saying, but I love fiction! I love to read books that capture my imagination and draw me into another person’s life. How else can you experience traveling down the Nile River in the 1920’s or running a cattle ranch in the Wild West?

Reading fiction tugs at your emotions, helps you process your own feelings, and builds your capacity for empathy. When I read a story to my children, and they all become worried or sad over a protagonist’s problems, they are learning how to care about other people. And when they read about a character who struggles with the same fears they have, yet manages to rise above them and succeed, it gives my children confidence that they, too, can conquer their fears.

I think that is why I enjoyed Tamera Alexander’s To Wager Her Heart so much.

I have read all of her books, but this one was by far my favorite, because I could identify with the main character’s fear.

Alexandra Jamison lives in Nashville in the post-Civil War years, a time of great change and unrest. Railroad companies are building new tracks, connecting cities previously reachable only through weeks of travel. Now in just a few days, a person can travel from the east coast to the west coast or New England to the Deep South. Along with that speed, however, comes danger. Railroad accidents could be deadly, as Alexandra finds out when the train on which she and her fiance are traveling crashes, killing her fiance. Alexandra lives with a deep fear of trains, and when she faces a choice to accompany the Jubilee Singers from Fisk University on a tour to raise money for their freedman’s school, she doesn’t think she can do it.

I am not frightened of trains, but I will admit to a deep discomfort around airplanes! I have flown many times, but when my husband and I were facing the long fifteen-hour flight from LA to China, I was terrified. I know I have no control over when I die, but I suppose I do have some tiny bit of control over how I die. After all, if I never board an airplane again, I can’t die in an airplane crash, right?

But since my son was in China, I had no choice. We flew from Detroit to LA and then boarded the gigantic international plane to fly to Guangzhou, China. Things started off all right, but a few hours into the flight, we hit heavy turbulence. The pilot told us to put our seat belts on, the cabin lights were dimmed, and we jerked up and down and up and down to accompaniment of children screaming in terror. I squeezed my husband’s hand so hard I probably cut off the circulation. I prayed and prayed and tried not to give in to the panic clawing its way up through my chest. Honestly, I clung to the fact that I KNEW God wanted us to adopt our son and that He would get us safely to China for that reason, but even so, I didn’t calm down for a long time after the turbulence stopped.

Putting your life in the control of another person – a train engineer, a pilot, a taxi driver – can be frightening because it reminds us of the simple fact that we are mortal. We are all facing eternity. Even though we have no power over whether we live or die at any time, when we are on a plane or something else dangerous, that fact is driven home sharply.

Who knows when our end will come? Will it come peacefully as I sleep? Or will it be a violent death in a tragic accident?

Either way, I want to face it as Philip Bliss did. Bliss, who showed up in Tamera Alexander’s book, was an American hymn-writer and evangelist who traveled with Dwight L. Moody. In 1876, Bliss was traveling through Ohio when a railroad bridge collapsed and his train plunged down into a ravine. He escaped unharmed, but went back into the fiery inferno of the crash to find his wife. Both perished, along with ninety other passengers out of the one hundred fifty-nine on board. In his personal belongings recovered from the crash was a notebook with the words he penned just before his death:

“I will sing of my Redeemer,
And His wondrous love to me;
On the cruel cross He suffered,
From the curse to set me free.

Sing, oh, sing of my Redeemer,
With His blood He purchased me,
On the cross He sealed my pardon,
Paid the debt, and made me free.

I will tell the wondrous story,
How my lost estate to save,
In His boundless love and mercy,
He the ransom freely gave.

I will praise my dear Redeemer,
His triumphant pow’r I’ll tell,
How the victory He giveth
Over sin, and death, and hell.

I will sing of my Redeemer,
And His heav’nly love to me;
He from death to life hath brought me,
Son of God with Him to be.”

What have you been reading recently? Share your thoughts here!