To Fly Again

Title: To Fly Again
Author: Gracia Burnham
Major Themes: Christian Nonfiction, Christian Living, Devotional Helps
Synopsis: A woman who spent a year as a hostage in the Philippine jungle shares what God taught her about thriving through the hard experiences she faced.

Anyone who knows our family very well knows that we lived through a very difficult experience several years ago. One of my dear friends loaned me a book recently, written by someone who went through a much harder experience—and came out victorious. I read Gracia Burnham’s To Fly Again this week, and appreciated all the encouragement and inspiration she shared in it.

Gracia and her husband were missionaries in the Philippines when they were taken hostage by a radical Muslim group, and dragged from place to place in the jungle for over a year. When they were finally rescued, her husband was killed in the process, and she came home injured. From that background, she shares in this book the lessons God taught her which made her able “To Fly Again.”

Gracia starts out by talking about how anger and impatience won’t help—and God wants us to rise above them (and makes us able to!). She talks about how we all fail, we are all sinners—but we can all find Grace, too! There are chapters about forgiveness, praise, and how to treat those around us (I loved her stories about her husband and how he treated others). She wraps up the book with a few chapters about how we are not really at home in this world—the best is yet to come!

To Fly Again is very encouraging. No matter what trauma and trials we have gone through, by God’s grace we can come out victorious. No matter where you are in life, this book can offer inspiration for your journey. I liked how short the chapters are, too; it is easy to read one and have some good thoughts to take along for the day.

No warnings!