Not Guilty

She is pillaged, plundered, stripped!

Hearts melt, knees give way,

Bodies tremble, every face grows pale.

Nahum 2:10

By the time I finished Not Guilty, a novel by Teresa Pollard and Candi Pullen, I didn’t quite know what to think.   The character declared “not guilty” is Carrie Shepherd, a single-yet-engaged, Christian woman who was raped in 1974.  (ISBN = 978-193870806-0)

As a woman, crimes against us, especially rape, are close to my heart.  As a survivor, Carrie goes through periods of anger, grief, shame, and guilt, as her friends and family wonder at how uncharacteristically distant, defiant and secretive she’s become.  Nonetheless, I was struck by how rapidly she healed.  Not Guilty definitely presents a wholesome, Christian worldview.  Sometimes I wondered, “too wholesome?”  Carrie bounces back so well that I wonder if people would walk away thinking that either rape isn’t that bad, or that it’s easy to heal from.  I was also a little angry about the rapist’s fate.

Yet, God says that vengeance is His; and that by His stripes, we are healed.  So do I doubt the book, or did Not Guilty reveal my doubts about God and His Word?  Not Guilty is intriguing, but not fun.  One has to wrestle with it.   HopeSprings Books gave me a complimentary copy of the book through BookCrash, but maybe the wrestling match is worth paying for.

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak . . . .

Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

Genesis 32:24 & 26