WAVES OF MERCY by LYNN AUSTIN

I have been eagerly waiting for WAVES OF MERCY, LYNN AUSTIN's latest novel, and I have definitely not been disappointed!
It is a story that spans a generation, and when it starts we meet Anna, a wealthy young woman from Chicago who has come to Holland with her mother, hoping to get over a broken engagement. Her fiancé forbids her to attend a church which he feels is full of fanatics and undesirable characters who are making her crazy! However, she cannot keep away and does go back, drawn by the loving God who the preacher obviously knows personally. This church is not fashionable like the dead church that she and William attend with their parents, where God is portrayed as a cold and authoritarian figure.
We meet Geesje, an elderly Dutch woman, who came from Holland to settle in the Holland area fifty years ago with her parents and other members of the Separitist church. They had been badly treated by the government church and left for a new life in America, where they would be able to worship the Lord as they chose.
To put it mildly, they didn't have an easy time of it, and Geesje is very honest when she writes about it all. Her parents never seem to lose faith in the God they serve with their whole heart, but Geesje really battles at times. The novel is full of Scriptures whose truth is well brought out in the story. We get the strong assurance that, no matter what happens, absolutely nothing can ever separate us from the love of God!
Journeys by ship play an important part in this novel. Anna is terrified of boats because of a recurring nightmare she has had since she was a little girl, which becomes more vivid after a rough voyage across the lake from Chicago.
Anna is a lonely young woman. She has a lot of questions about God and life in general and knows she won't get any answers from the people she mixes with in the privileged life she leads. That is why she keeps going back to the "castle" church, and also why she risks her mother's and William's displeasure by making friends with Derk. Derk is a seminary student who is working at the hotel she is staying in, mostly taking tourists sailing on the lake.
Anna is adopted and feels rejected by her birth parents. There is a mystery about her birth mother that she is determined to find out about, even though she loves her adoptive parents dearly.
I really cannot recommend this novel highly enough. It is a heartwarming story that is hard to put down. The Author makes you feel the characters' joys and heartaches. It is also full of biblical truth.


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