Living Through The Narrative
The Lumberjack’s Ball by Carrie Fancett Pagels is the second book in the Christy Lumber Camp series but can be read as a stand-alone. I love Carrie Fancett Pagels books as I don’t just read them page by page, I live through them.
Ten years before the novel begins seventeen year old Janie suffered a horrendous attack. Since then she has hidden away from the world. As the novel opens, Janie has changed her name to Rebecca and her father has set her up to manage a new store in St Ignace, Michigan. Rebecca wants a new beginning but is still fearful. She hides herself behind drab clothes and a severe hairstyle. The reader is reminded that in God we can have new names and new beginnings. However Rebecca will need to let go of her past in order to move forward into the future that God has planned for her.
Garrett Christy and his brother Richard also had their lives changed ten years earlier when they rescued Janie. They too have new names. Garrett began to exclude God from his life ten years earlier, as well as trying to take on God’s job as protector of the females in his life. Garrett needs to “forgive himself and let God back in his life.” Too often we take on roles that only God can fill. We need to let go and let God.