Into the Fire

(Originally posted on July 23rd, 2018, as "A time to . . . Send Down The Rain".)

Nobody does broken like Charles Martin. And in his latest Send Down The Rain, there is plenty of brokenness.

I've said before that I was late to the Charles Martin reading party, but now I know for me that's a good thing. His novels tear at the soul, make sadness and pain palpable, heavy, to the point of tasting it. Can't stop reading the story even as it filets the heart.

Characters come alive on the pages and sear our souls with their sorrows. Joseph "Jo Jo" Brooks makes an enormous sacrifice that only he, his brother, and his mother know about. The secret remains hidden until the one person who can in Jo Jo's mind reveal it steps up to do just that.

Joseph Brooks rescues and adopts a dog and a desperate small family and continues to wonder about the only girl (Allie) he's ever loved over 40 years ago. At night he listens to the sultry voice of Suzy True on the radio who talks with veterans like him of the Viet Nam war where she lost her father. When Jo Jo decides to check in on that girl he loved and lost, her husband's life has just ended in a fiery tanker crash, and there's no one she needs more than Jo Jo.

Send Down The Rain is a story of broken people trying to find a way back to "good", of fear and loathing that strafed the hearts and souls of young and older, of wounds carried through years of anguish, of hopes up in flames, of raw hatred and devastating betrayal, cavernous pain and shattered dreams. But then . . .

This novel is classic Charles Martin. Beautiful and symbolic prose, lifelike characters who deeply hurt, and a story that weaves people together in a modern art painting that meshes into impressionist but ends up with the distinctions of a real life photograph. Send Down The Rain is worth every moment it takes to read and every tear that is sure to fall.

Father, you have assigned your writers an awesome purpose. There's no question you've anointed Charles to be one of your wordsmiths. May you fill him with the stories just for him to tell and keep his heart firmly in sync with yours. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.