Peace Like a River

This book was about a boy with asthma whose brother commits murder to protect the family. After he escapes from jail Reuben and his family follow wherever God takes them and hope He leads them towards their brother Davy. Most of the characters in the story represent bible characters.

It all started with two murders long ago that changed my perspective. The miracles I have witnessed are engraved in my mind and everyday they shout to me the glory of God. These miracles my father has done by the name of God are witnessed by only three people -- me, my younger sister, and my father’s wife. Only we have had this blessing yet only I have ignored it.

Anger and annoyance rose from within me as I took a step out of my house. My father and mother watch each move as a threat of a life without me. Another step from the house and I am sprinting away to nowhere in particular. I only know that I am done with living in this house under their rules. A left at Oak Creek Dr. and a right at Limestone Ave. following the path often taken by my parents on our way home from our cabin up north. Soon realizing my feet are guiding my home I take a shortcut through a forest nearby. Winding in and out of the trees as the sun sets behind me I find myself at an opening.

Looking around I realized there was no place left to go. The sky above me was too tall and the cliff below me was too deep -- too deep for any human being to survive a fall. I was trapped in a large world with no place left to go; there was no place for me to go except on my knees. Looking up the sky I speak slowly and surely.

"Dear Lord, I know my father often speaks with you as if your were an old friend but that is not the case for me. I have not known you very long and speaking to you is foreign to me. Lord if you hear me right now, if you can look down from your throne in heaven to look at a mere mortal such as myself, then I ask you to forgive me. Forgive me for running away from my parents and home to find myself. Forgive me for ignoring you and for telling my father that you were a figment of his imagination. I've heard my father enough to know that Jesus died on the cross so that we could be forgiven. Please my God, let this be the case for me."

I can barely finish this sentence from the ache in my throat. The tears in my eyes overflow and roll down my cheeks. I start to have an asthma attack and am kneeling on the ground wheezing hard. A hand on my shoulder causes me to jerk my head around and my sight is blurred from being dizzy and from the tears. I see my father standing there strong and proud. He bends down and looks me straight in the eye.

"My dear daughter, you have repented your sins and I have died. You shall be forgiven. You are healed my daughter. Remember always that God loves you and he shall never forget you. I will never forget you. I love you."

My wheezing vanishes as suddenly as my father. I was forgiven but at what cost. He was died so my weaknesses and sins could be forgiven. My father is my Jesus Christ. He is my savior.

Explanation:

In the novel Peace Like a River, Davy has decided that the will of God to commit murder. His mistakes affect the whole family in a way that changes their lives forever. They drive in a camper wherever God leads them -- whether or not it is towards Davy. The father, Jeremiah, finds a wife while his children Rueben, who has a problem with his lungs, and Swede learn what it is like to follow God unconditionally.

The story eventually leads to where both Rueben and the father are shot. They go together to another "country" but only the father is allowed to continue into Heaven while Rueben must live the rest of his life. Jeremiah died to save Davy. He died so that Davy could be forgiven and so Rueben could breathe. His death was the death of Jesus Christ as was the rest of his life leading up to this point; Jeremiah Land was Jesus Christ all along.

"At the end of the book, after Jeremiah had died, Dr. Nokes spoke to a cured Rueben. "Your father shouldn't have died, Rueben. Did you know that?" Rueben should have died from his wound from the bullet and from his asthma, but his father was not injured enough to die. This shows how Jeremiah died like Jesus to save his family.