Mending The Broken
What Follows After by Dan Walsh is a powerful Christian historical suspense novel about the goodness and the faithfulness of God.
The novel is set in 1962 as the world teeters on the edge of another world war and at the height of the Cold War. As the world waits with baited breath, so a family waits as their world is rocked. 1962 was a very different time to today. Dan Walsh has perfectly captured the atmosphere of fear, of a lack of personal phones, the movement of the military and the use of personal servants. We see the dynamics of a young man who was closer to the Negro lady who bought him up than to his own mother.
Failed marriages in 1962 were seen as shameful. As a family hides behind a smoke screen of lies, their world is shaken to the core. “Was God punishing her for all those lies?” God is a good Father. He does not punish us in that way. It is just life that is hard.
We need to build our lives on firm foundations. We need to build them on the Rock so that when the hard times come, and they will, we will not crumble.
Prayer is important. “How about I just pray?” Sometimes in life we withdraw from God. The enemy sows the seed that God has withdrawn from us but God has promised to never leave us nor forsake us. We must not believe the lies of the enemy. “He wasn’t… too sure the Almighty was listening to his prayers… But he knew God would always listen to Mamie Lee’s prayers.” We all need prayer warriors in our lives.
Family is important. It is only when fractures and brokenness occur that we realise what really is important.
God is faithful. He does not leave us alone to struggle. In the dark places, He is beside us. He can and will restore the years that the locusts have eaten. “No one fixes broken things better than God.”
What Follows After was a compulsive read. It had me gripped from the start. My emotions were turned upside down and inside out. There was both a macrocosm and a microcosm of fear as Dan Walsh explored the wider world and a family. Dan Walsh has produced a fabulous read.
I want to leave you with this powerful quote:
“God was still on the throne, the devil was still on the run, and Christ had still won the victory.”
JULIA WILSON
