Not God's Type

This is the book that consumed me last week. It is a short book and rather easy to read. It tells the story of a woman who came to know God as an adult. A woman who is a liberal, feminist. A woman who is a rational thinker. A woman with her Ph D. and a professor. A woman who was an atheist all her life, until the age of 31 when God revealed Himself to her through rational Truth. A woman who now lives as a walking testimony of how God worked in her life that was unique to her needs because he knew her so well to know what it would take.

I was drawn to this book while at the Stillwater Public Library last Monday for the first time. I wanted to find a new book to read and truth be told I can't afford Hastings anymore, so the library was the next best option. As a fairly new Christian myself I am intrigued by the stories of other Christians. I love to learn about the stories of God's grace and mercy in people's lives. This book was immediately appealing to me when I read the back cover. The reason is, in my quest to know God deeper and more intimately, I think it is helpful to know what it was about others that drew them to God.

I am not even close to being a rationalist. Rational thinking is so far off my radar. In fact most of the time, I will not tell you what I think about something. Instead, I will tell you how I feel about something. In general, this means that any decision or thought I have is usually made with emotion rather than logic thought. I came to Christ at an emotional time in my life. I was hurt and broken. I felt empty and needed something to fill the hole. I was drawn to Christ through my feelings.

However, in this book, Holly was not drawn to God through an emotional circumstance in her life. Holly wanted someone to show her that it made sense that God was real. She wanted someone to show her the truth through rational explanations. It was through this curiosity that God so beautifully showed Himself to Holly. He knew it wouldn't take dragging her to the pit. He knew that warm-fuzzy miracles were not convincing enough for her. He knew that she just needed the black and white facts of who He was. When she was able to work through the research, the experiments, the pros, and the cons at her pace she was able to see her Savior.

It is a beautiful story. In more ways than one this book just made me fall more in love with Jesus. I will leave you with one conversation between Holly and her Fencing coach from this book that will forever stick with me.

"Ok," I said. "You believe in God. I don't. When I die, what do you think is going to happen to me?"

He said, "I'd rather not answer that question."
I was surprised-and I recognized that I was getting more respect than I probably deserved: he'd prefer to say nothing rather than water down his response to make it more palatable for me. Suddenly I realized that I genuinely did want to hear the answer.
"No, really, I want to know what you think."

"Well," he said, "I believe that we will come before God in judgement, and He will give each person either perfect justice, or perfect mercy."

I sat in silence thinking about this for a moment. Slowly, I said, "And you believe that it would be better for me to know enough, beforehand, to ask for perfect mercy?"

"Yes, I do."