Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Walking on Water

Title: Walking on Water
Author: Richard Paul Evans
Publisher: May 6th 2014 by Simon & Schuster
Format: Hardcover; Pgs 320
Genre: Inspirational
Series: The Walk #5

Let’s go for a walk. What a great way to end this series.

In the fifth and final book in the Walk Series, Alan Christoffersen is rushing back home to be with his father who has had a sudden heart attack. While staying at his family home, Alan comes across a family history that his father has been writing since Alan began his journey from Seattle to Key West.

If you have been reading this series from the beginning, you know that Alan’s world was upended when his wife died suddenly, his business partner stole his clients and Alan was forced into bankruptcy. Though they are all traumatic events, if it were not for each one of them, if he had not taken that first step in a three thousand mile journey, Alan would not have found the beauty that the world offers.

As Alan learns of his family history, and reaches his final destination, his world is coming together. He is saying goodbye to the most important people in his life and at the same time, saying hello to a person that he thought he had lost forever.

Though Alan Christofferson is a fictional character, he offers inspiration. When his physical goal looks as if it is unattainable, he does not give up. His journey is a metaphor for hope – that one bend in the road that might give him the answer, that one thing that will explain it all and make it worthwhile. Does he find it? What he fines is his new reality, his new peace, his new meaning.

Off course there are religious overtones, and undertones, but for me they were not intolerable. The Walk Series is a journal and the stories that AIan tells of his journey and the people that he meets along the way correspond with stories within the Bible. Some say that they felt that Alan was trying to compare his journey with the journey of Jesus, but that did not jump out at me. What I saw was perseverance. What I saw was the choice of giving up or moving forward.

I did enjoyed taking this walk with Alan and would look forward to many more if only Richard Paul Evans would offer them.

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