In Search of a Song

In Search of a Song was a book I owned in my early teens. It's the story of Jennie and Stephen, two young people who moved to a tiny town called Jaffrey. Both of them rebelled initially against the move, but they met, formed a friendship through this and started to learn contentment together in the Lord's plan. Other characters help them towards this too.
Jennie, of course, falls for Stephen, though it's a tiny subplot and not at all the heart of the story. It's neatly and unobtrusively woven in. Stephen goes away to school and Jennie stays at home.

Right towards the end of the book, Stephen's sister, Julia, tells Jennie of a girl called Laurie who Stephen's been getting close to and taking out at school.
Stephen has a short soliliquay about how much Laurie and Jennie are alike, but the differences in Laurie which draw him to her romantically make Jennie only a special and dear sister to him.

Laurie is brought home to meet Jennie and shares her room. The girls get along great, Laurie bubbly and telling Jennie about all the things Stephen's done for and with her, and Jennie's sitting there smiling, with her own memories. She eventually learns to even submit this to the Lord, but it doesn't go into too much detail and the epilogue is quite short, making me think that perhaps the author went through this situation themselves and still found it too painful a memory to deal with.

I didn't handle the book very well at the time, because I could well imagine the kind of massive pain that would bring and the fear entered my heart that this situation would be one I would be called to face. As it sorta is now, which perhaps is part of the reason I've cut the guy so entirely from my life.

I found the book again today, and, ignoring the ache inside, flipped to that last short section, where Julia tells Jennie that Stephen's bringing Laurie for a visit.
Here's a short quote from it.
"Jennie well knew that the measure of her acceptance of anything hard in her life would be directly related to the measure of her trust in God."


Someone asked me what God was doing with all this.
He was teaching me to trust Him. With my deepest emotions. With the essence of my heart. With the place I was most vulnerable, with the person I was most vulnerable to.
That's what happens when you let God have your love life.
Nothing is to be ours. Not even those closest to our hearts. Not even the emotions deepest to us.

Christ must be Lord of All, or He is Lord of nothing. It is something I've known from childhood, but until experienced, it stays that way.

Keep going. Keep open to Christ. Allow Him access. The pain will be turned to beauty. Christ is worth it - the Only One worth it. Through the fire, like gold refined.
Keep. Trusting. On.



In Him,

~Siân