My Voice rises to God, and He Will Hear Me

I recently read a book by Brandilyn Collins, Over the Edge. This book impressed me in so many ways.

Janessa has Lyme disease. Her body is weak and filled with pain. Sometimes she feels as if she’s being suffocated.

Her husband leaves her and takes their daughter with him. Her best friend wants to help but has her own family to care for.

Janessa craves comfort from somewhere.

She makes her way with difficulty to the kitchen where her bible is in a drawer. She struggles to get it to the table and sits down.

The Bible opens to the Psalms, and she is glad. She wants to read David’s prayers of rage and his demands for God to help him.

Psalm 77:1: My voice rises to God, and I will cry aloud;

My voice rises to God, and He will hear me.

Though she is still sick, and her circumstances have not changed, she chooses to believe this.

I have been in this kind of position, looking for comfort, finally turning to God.

As a writer, I often find myself examining books I read for pleasure, noticing techniques and writing skills. Sentence structure, word usage, scene description.

I am impressed by the skills Ms. Collins uses to describe a scene and create a mood which draws the reader into the story. As I read OVER THE EDGE, I found myself trying to breathe, feeling weak, having difficulty forcing my mind to find the words I want, struggling to move forward in whatever I am doing, as though I had Lyme disease.

I pray that God will help me grow in this skill as a writer, to be able to capture my readers that much.

Plus, OVER THE EDGE is a great suspense story, with excellent twists and surprises.