Stepping Into Sunlight - A Review

I loved this book!

Stepping into Sunlight is a story of a young Christian wife and mother.  Her life is in upheaval. Her husfband is on his first deployment as a Navy chaplain.  She is still unpacking after moving from Wisconsin to Virginia.  She kisses her family and is homesick. When she witnesses a hold-up and shooting at a local convience store, she is thrust into PTSD and all the ramifications. 

Suddenly, getting out of bed or venturing in public overwhelms her. Fighting flashbacks and nightmares, she struggles to take care of her son alone while her husband is at sea.  

To try to recover, she develops a plan where she determined to do one nice thing for someone else every day.  The plan sometimes backfires, sometimes helps, and is even taken on as a group plan by her victim's support group.

I read this book and fell in love with the main character, Penny. I remember what it was like trying to take care of young children, away from family, while a husband was on deployment.  That alone is tough.  Attempting to deal with trauma at the same time can cause a world to simply stop. 

I read the book and laughed, living the fact that so many of the principles Penny used to recover from her PTSD are all things I have heard Joyce Meyer speak and write about often.  The message was to get your mind off of yourself by focusing on blessing others. There was also a strong message on facing fears by doing whatever scares you afraid. 

One of the most touching moments was Penny blessing her son every morning before he went to school. I love the idea of that! Even when Penny wasn't able to pray much for herself or had questions about why God would allow her to go through such a horrible ordeal, she still prayed a blessing over her son daily.  Isn't that what life is like?  When you can't pray for yourself, you can still pray for others. 

We all question at times why we go through things.  Sometimes the answer isn't given.  Learning how to trust that God knows even if we don't can be an obstacle that stops many from following the Lord.  

I will be looking for more novels by Sharon Hinck.  She touches a women's heart easily, and puts Biblical principles in an awesome story form.  Like a parable, lessons presented this way seems to touch me more deeply than any other form.