PROVIDENCE BY CHRIS COPPERNOLL

PROVIDENCE by CHRIS COPPERNOLL.
I have just read this novel for the second time, the first being some time ago. It is an interesting book and I can highly recommend it.  I enjoyed it very much.
Jack Clayton, the protagonist, is talked into writing his own life story after he has had great success with his third published book about the work of the Campus Missions Office in Providence. This leads to tremendous healing in his life and a much closer walk with the Lord as he faces the past and deals with it.  Being a very private person, he refuses to be interviewed by the media, and, whilst he writes about others, he doesn't write anything about himself.  This makes people, especially the media, suspicious.  He has become extremely rich through the success of his books, and they feel he is hypocritical being so rich and yet being known as "pastor to the poor". He really doesn't want to write this biography, not caring at all what people think of him, but when his best friends say he should go ahead and do it, even though it will mean time away from the office and more work for them, he agrees to do so, much to the relief of his publisher and agent Arthur Reed.  He also gets a strong feeling that the Lord is leading him to write this book for a reason.  He knows that it will be painful but he is determined to follow the Lord wherever He leads.  He is a man of forty who is forced to look back at his life and deal with so much - especially his guilt feelings about his treatment of Jenny, the love of his life, and his best friend Mitch's death, which he feels is his fault, as indeed it seemed to be.
He has known Mitch all his life and it is when Mitch comes to Chicago to talk some sense into Jack that he gets shot in Jack's roommate's car in a drug deal gone bad.  Although Jack doesn't do drugs or drink, he mixes with really bad types.  He has run away to get away from commitment - he is young and immature and selfish and breaks Jenny's heart.  Mitch is engaged to Erin and the wedding is to be in two week's time.
He remembers with longing the uncomplicated and happy days at college where he and Jenny, Mitch and Erin, made up a foursome and had so much fun together.
After Mitch's funeral, Jenny tries to take Jack back to Providence with her so that he can heal, but he runs off to Albuquerque where he lives the life of a hobo and is mugged and left for dead.  He ends up badly injured in hospital.
Jenny has gone to London to minister with her parents in their mission work and Jack  uses his last bit of money to fly out there for a surprise visit to Jenny.  He is devastated to find that she is getting married in two weeks' time.  He tries to talk her out of it, and when that doesn't work he comes to the end of himself down by the Thames and cries out to God to save him.  Here he makes a commitment to serve the Lord and follow Him which leads to his work at Campus Missions and working amongst the poor.  He becomes extremely rich and quite well known for his book "Labourers in the Orchard" and no-one knows that he lives very simply and gives away most of his money.
He is badly criticized by the press, especially by a hostile reporter called Bud Abbott, who writes an article full of lies about him because he refuses to be interviewed.  To the world it looks as though he has something to hide, but he doesn't want to be in the limelight.  He wants the Lord to have all the glory for everything he has achieved as he knows how he messed things up when he tried doing things in his own strength.  He does something quite rash when he tells Bud he wants him to write the book with him and that he will tell the whole story, leaving nothing out.  In spite of Bud's antagonism towards him he knows it is God who has called him to do this.
Eventually, through the writing of this his last book, he comes across Jenny again.  She and her parents and her sons have moved back to the States.  He meets her by chance, but he knows that it is the Lord who has orchestrated the meeting.  He knows that all things do indeed work together for good for those who are called according to God's purpose.
The novel is beautifully written and full of scriptural truth and insight into human nature.  We see the Lord's great love for His children and how He is the God of second chances.  As Jack is totally sold out to the Lord and His purposes, he is finally reunited with the love of his life. We see how important it is not to dwell on the past.  Jack is amazed at the fact that those he has hurt through his immature actions, including Jenny's parents, Jenny, Erin's parents and his mother, Marianne, have forgiven him long ago. Through the painful journey through his past, wishing he had done things differently, he comes into peace and joy.  This narrative of Jack's journey through life is well worth reading.