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What happens after the drunk driver—when the accident’s in the past? After the funeral, when there’s nothing left but a white cross planted by the road, when life has split into bright-colored photos of before and black-and-white photos of after? How does the sister who’s lost her sibling and best friend learn to go on?
Kylie channels her hurt into social work and running a grief support group at New Hope Church. Today, she’s going to welcome a new member. She already feels a kinship with him, but Mason Bennett feels kinship only with grief. He doesn’t even have a white cross to remember his brother by.
Sometimes it’s hard to know why one person is taken and another left behind. Sometimes all the jobs that fill time only build walls around the hole that needs filling in the heart. And sometimes God’s purposes are as beautiful as they are obscure.
Kylie can’t forgive the drunk driver because he died at the scene. Mason can’t forgive himself because he needs someone else to lead the way. Together, they build a bridge over anger and pain, but the final step is the hardest one to take, though it carries the greatest reward.
Wounded Faith is the sort of short story that turns assumptions on their head and leaves readers thinking and wondering. How would we react? How do we feel about the characters now that we know so much more about them? Is forgiving—and forgiving yourself—something we’d be able to do? And can love really be the key?
The story starts with a Bible verse, reminding readers that God heals the brokenhearted. Another verse gives the first ingredients of the sacred recipe: to let go of all bitterness, anger, and malice, to be kind and to forgive. Then the author stirs the mix to make one perfect tale.
The situation’s all too familiar, but the characters are very natural, portrayed with pitch-perfect dialogue and genuine feeling. The scene is clear, and the story is very beautifully and simply told, with quiet revelations and effortless honesty, never falling for the temptation to preach or wring the reader’s heart.
If you’ve ever struggled with forgiveness—and who hasn’t?—this tale is forgiveness writ large with a lesson clearly drawn and beautifully told.
