Are you down in the dumps? If you’re a Christian, do you feel dry and dull, and like you’ve lost your first love ? I did, and I asked the Lord to help me get back, and He has! This is the antidote for depression and it will work for you! Someone at church handed me a book yesterday for junior school kids and I read it when I got home. It re-awakened such a love for Jesus in my heart, more than a hundred sermons could do! The book is ‘The Victor’ by Patricia St. John.
Not only is it easy reading, but it is riveting. The story is set in Lebanon, just north of Israel, at the time of Christ and the main character is Philo, a pagan boy 12 years old, who helps his father, a fisherman who goes out in his boat at night on the Mediterranean Sea.
Philo has two sisters, one he loves and one he hates and wishes dead. The sister he hates is a violent, snarling girl who became demon possessed when she was a baby. Her mother had paid a soothsayer (a witch) to pray over her and that is when the trouble began.
It cast a darkness over the whole family, who had to keep the girl inside, but she would sometimes break out and terrify people.
Philo’s uncle comes for a visit. He too is a fisherman, but transferred his business to the lake of Galilee. He tells the family there is something strange going on down there, with talk of a prophet going around healing sick people, and a wild tale of water being changed into wine.
I had better stop here, only to say the stories of the prophet keep filtering up north. Many dramatic events shake the family, especially when the father is swept away in a storm and Philo is not old enough to take over the boat.
It is an exciting read, a real page-turner, and I won’t spoil it by giving any more away. I just want to add that the miracles of the Lord Jesus take on heart-wrenching reality.
You can get ‘The Victor’ from Eden.co.uk . I rang today and ordered a set of Patricia St. John books. She was a missionary nurse in Morocco and is now with the Lord.
When our daughter Annie was at school, she was so impressed with another of her books, ‘Treasures of the Snow’, that she wrote to Miss St John – and was thrilled to get a letter back!
In it she told of one way she and, I think, her sister, had reached out to young people by putting a ping pong table in their garage for the kids to come and play.
What a very great lady.
Get the book! I don’t think anyone could read ‘The Victor’ without falling in love all over again with our blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. It may well motivate you to new heights of service.
