When Justice Is Bought and Sold...

I recently finished a book called The Heir. It is one of the best Christian fiction books I've ever read; I highly recommend it.

I feel compelled to give a synopsis, so don't read if you don't like spoilers: It's about a guy who inherits a billion dollars when his father dies. He takes over his father's job, determined not to be the greedy, corrupt man that his father was. As he begins to feel the stress and responsibilities of being a billionaire, mysterious events surround him. Shady acquaintances make sketchy business deals, and suspicious colleagues pressure him into making uncomfortable decisions. Soon it is revealed that his father's death was a murder. As the story progresses, a series of murders claim the lives of many of his acquaintances, friends, and family. He decides he just can't handle the pressures of being a billionaire anymore, and realizes that he is beginning to become exactly like his devious father. So, he divides the money it up and gives it to various foundations. Soon after that, he is wrongfully blamed for all of the murders, so he flees his home and travels sporadically throughout rural New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, trying to stay unrecognized. With little money, a huge search warrant on his head, estranged friends and family who believe he is the killer, and injuries from being mugged, he hits rock bottom. When he goes back to New York to his only friend that still believes in his innocence, in a heart-wrenching moment, he figures out that that friend is the murderer! Eventually he is able to escape the friend's attempt to kill him, he exposes the friend's murders, and he is finally exonerated and able to go home to his friends and family.

"Around us the light faded and the twilight deepened. All we knew was silence. And in the silence, free of the babble of questions that had always torn at my mind and my thoughts, I knew that God had given me a life and a purpose."

You can call me absolutely pathetic, but this made me cry like a baby, and that's not something I do very often at all, let alone admit to doing when it does happen. Maybe it's because it was 2:00 in the morning when I read it, and it really quelled my fears caused by being clueless of what my future looks like. Anyway, it was just the perfect thought at that moment in the book, having been reunited with his family and friends, proven innocent, and learning some very hard lessons after being scorched by his position as hotshot billionaire.

Whew.

Grace + Peace