Books by Jack Phillips Lowe

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Saturday, April 28, 2007

Book review of "Rain Dance" by Joy DeKok

As a reader of many books I always like reading a book where I start to get a feel for a character really fast. In this book I was captured by the dilemma of one character as she waits to see her doctor to tell him that they want to stop fertility treatments to try and manufacture a baby through modern medicine, and also the dilemma of the young lass she meets who is there to get a referral to a doctor that can help her get an abortion.

One young lady has finally given up on trying to get pregnant and has to sit by another girl who is pregnant justify to her why she is booking in to have a procedure to have her baby removed.
This story had deep emotional reasons why I wanted to read it from the first time I heard about it and went to her website to find out more. I once went to a church with a lady who I came to know who was barren and could not conceive. I saw her cry many tears and I witnessed how awkward she looked on mother's day and she was left out. I am always sad on father's day as I have a son I can't see and I remember putting my arm around her that day and sharing why I am sad on those days too. I always liked this lady in my church and I liked how her eyes could fill up with tears, with sweet honest tears but I did not know how to speak to her about her deep pain. So you imagine my interest when I saw this book, as a way to read about her pain and learn more about what these wonderful barren women go though.

I remember the story in the Bible of that lady that was weeping in the temple wanting a child and yet she was barren. She promised the Father(God) that she would dedicate her son to full time ministry if she could just conceive. Well God did a miracle and opened her womb and a child was born that became a famous prophet who anointed and put into power the first two kings of Israel. In the gospels John the Baptists mother was also a barren woman having a baby due to a miracle and once again a powerful prophet was raised by a faithful mother whose pain had drawn her close to the Father.

I read Joys novel, a novel I might add was written by a lady who is still barren herself who has had to fight all the pain and struggles of her character and I saw myself weeping many times and my heart going out to all those women. Her character was a young woman full of love and not too pushy as a Christian and she became a very loyal and precious friend of the young lass who had an abortion.

As a writer myself who has written two unpublished novels that one day I threw out, I am always so proud of a self published author. As a writer I watch another writer carve out a plot, I watch the characters come to life and then sometimes I am fortunate to see the characters driving the story forward to places the writer might not have plotted. Faced with a character that was a barren women and going through the struggles the character went through trying to reconcile her loving God with the fact she was an incomplete women in the worlds eyes, I was well aware that this character took joy to places where her manuscript if it was being written in pen and paper would be smeared with tears and running ink. My first novel had me in many of my characters and some of my scenes were simply typed through tears misting my vision.

I heard once that if you're crying when you write a scene it's a good bet that your readers will be crying too. That was useful advice and as I re-worked some scenes over ten years in my first novel I made sure I dug deeper and reached deeper into my pain and painted my canvass with real pain and emotion. I can state very confidently that this book would have been very painful for the author to write and many dark places with much crying would have been visited.

The second major character had a bit of emotional history with me and once again it drew me to the book. One time when I was married when I was young my wife's pretty young friend got pregnant due to a mistake with a boyfriend. The boyfriend did the manly thing and said it's up to her but basically was hinting that he would be happy to pay for the abortion. Our friend broke up with him due to his attitude. I was a Christian and not at all for an abortion as I considered it murder in my self righteous Christian attitude. I asked my friend if she would see a pro life person I knew from a church I used to go to. She agreed and met the person and still came back saying that this child would spoil her college plans and her life. I loved this best friend of my wife and she loved me.

I spoke to my wife at the time and I was in tears. I just couldn't help my friend. Then I came up with an idea. I asked my wife if we might have one more go with her friend. She invited her friend over and I asked her friend if she could have the baby and myself and Sharryn would adopt the child and parent the child till she had finished college and done everything and had found a man that would accept her as a single parent and then she could have her child back. To me it was a perfect solution and my wife's friend was touched as I cried in my delivery of the idea.

But no. That would not do and we watched our friend go and have that abortion.

I broke up with my wife and lost my wife and also her best friend and I never knew the fallout of that abortion and that is why Stacie in this novel was such an attractive character for me to read. I cried Stacie's tears and seemed to really feel her pain and caught myself wishing I knew where this friend of my wife still lived so I could give her this book.

There are some wonderful other characters in this book and the author is no way an amateur that you might expect with a self published author. I know that every time this book is being read people are healing, finding God, getting answers and being educated. If Joy did nothing else in this world she has done something monumental in publishing this book for all those hurting women in the world.

I am pro life folks but guys many girls simply don't have friends that would adopt their child and we live in a society that says it's a simple procedure. My heart goes out for all the girls like my wife's friend that I loved who have never been told that God loves them, understood their decision and that their innocent baby lives in heaven waiting them to come into his everlasting kingdom.

For a person that knows little about the Christian faith this is a good look at what a good Christian should be like replete with her own flaws and struggles. In the book two good books are mentioned for people that would like to check out the Christian faith and for people who are not Christians I would make note of them as they are also both two very excellent books by well known Christian authors.

In my time there are not many books where I will buy ten books and give them out as gifts, but this book is one that I consider a life gift to the right person. This is a book you'll read, you'll cry enjoy and then you'll give away and buy another copy for yourself.

You can tell Joy has her heart in the right place and cares more about her message and not money as when you go your website you can read roughly 190 pages off your screen and read it for free. It's funny Jesus taught, freely you have received freely give and so few people give something away for free. So feel free to read it online and then find yourself wanting to buy two or three copies as a nice heart-warming gift to some precious women that you know.

May Joy be blessed, and may you be blessed as you read the book for free or in your own book that you ordered online.

Her books website is http://www.raindancebook.com

Happy reading

Love Matthew Payne

PS Her two characters will live with me forever as friends and I know my ten books will be used by me to bring quite a few ladies to tears and healing.

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