WHAT SHE LEFT FOR ME BY TRACIE PETERSON

WHAT SHE LEFT FOR ME by TRACIE PETERSON is a novel about relationships, restoration and reconciliation.  It is a story about choices people make and how these choices affect others.  There is a message of hope in hopeless situations, of forgiveness given and received, and of the light of Christ dispelling the darkness of the past.  It is a well written book, full of scriptural truth, and the characters are very real.
Eleanor was brought up in a commune with hippie parents who were convinced that the world was against them and that they had true freedom and happiness in their sordid surroundings and questionable lifestyle.  Eleanor's father was a doctor and her mother a drug addict.  She was taken away by the police to live with foster parents, who were harsh and condemning, and then her aunt Taffy and her husband Cal found her in juvenile detention when she was fourteen and took her to live with them.  They were wealthy and spared nothing in trying to give her a good life to make up for all she had gone through.  
Eleanor never opens up to anyone and is determined to never be let down again by people she has trusted, having been sexually abused as a child by her father and then raped when she was grown up.  Her daughter Jana is the result of her rape and Eleanor brings her up without any show of affection, in fact she treats her very harshly and gives the impression that she wished Jana had never been born.  Actually, she is trying to protect her daughter from being taken advantage of as she was, and wants her to grow up strong, not needing anyone.  She never realized she was hurting Jana, she thought she was protecting her. The circumstances of Jana's birth are kept as Eleanor's secret, and she is full of guilt and unforgiveness.  She blames God for not taking care of her and for letting all these bad things happen to her.  
Aunt Taffy is quite the opposite, although she has had her share of sadness.  She is full of life and love, rather eccentric but totally sold out to the Lord.  She has a childlikeness that draws people to her, but she is also very wise and caring.  She has a large house and is very well off, and she loves to spend her money on others.  She is delighted when Eleanor comes to live with her, and even more delighted when Jana moves in as well.  She has never been allowed to have anything to do with Jana.
Jana's husband Rob, a pastor, runs off with his secretary and then is murdered by the secretary's husband.  Jana feels very let down as he takes all her money and valuables and she comes to Taffy's house with nothing.  She would never have come to her mother for help, but she has no other option.  She is pregnant, much to her mother's horror and Taffy's delight.  She is terrified that she will become the same kind of mother as her mother has been.
Jana feels that God has let her down as He should have kept her safe in her marriage.  She realizes that her idea of God came from Rob, and sees in hindsight that Rob became less interested in her when she started coming closer to God herself in prayer and Bible reading.  Both she and Eleanor eventually realize that it is no good blaming other people for what goes wrong and definitely no good blaming God, who has given man free choice.  Both Eleanor and Jana come to the end of themselves and come to the Lord for forgiveness and new life. They see that God does not see any one sin as worse than another.  The cleansing that comes from the truth is amazing and both Jana and Eleanor come to know the Lord personally.  They find out that Taffy has known all along who Jana's father is and that she has total peace with the past.  They see that the Lord can bring good out of all circumstances, and that their coming to live together and Jana's pregnancy have led to the ugliness of the past being brought out into the open and dealt with.
Jana and Eleanor become close when the truth is out and when Eleanor finally trusts enough to love again.  She has been afraid to love and has lived a cold, dark life.  She bemoans the fact that she and Jana were never close, but Jana tells her that it is never too late with the Lord.
It is significant that Eleanor, who helped her father deliver babies in his commune clinic, delivers Jana's baby at home, ably helped by aunt Taffy, and that Jana calls her daughter Meira, which is Hebrew for light!