Night With A Perfect Stranger by |  |
A Review
My first impression of Night With A Perfect Stranger was less than spectacular. It did not live up to the author’s previous two books, Dinner With A Perfect Stranger and Day With A Perfect Stranger. In the first two books, Nick Cominsky and his wife, Maggie, meet Jesus. They each spend time with him and take the first steps in faith as they seek to follow the Savior.
Over time, Maggie’s faith grew while Nick’s faith seemed to get lost on the way to living his life. As he travels home, Nick once again meets Jesus and has another significant conversation with Him. A conversation, as the subtitle suggests, changes everything.
Though the book did not grab my interest at first, about three fifths of the way through, I found myself in tears. The author uses an illustration of God’s love that I had never heard before. God’s love is compared to that of a father of an premature baby. That baby has no way to ask for the father’s love, that baby has no way to acknowledge that love. Yet the father loves the baby none-the-less. We are that premature baby - not yet fully developed. But God loves us none-the-less. We will grow, we will get stronger - but we are not there yet. And, as that father loves his premature child, God loves us.
Night With A Perfect Stranger is really the story of two conversations. The first, as indicated above, is with Jesus. The second is with a friend who has learned to live out the lessons that Jesus is teaching Nick. It allows Nick to put a face onto the lessons.
Early on, as I read the book, I was drawn to similarities between this story and The Shack. by William P. Young. In the last half of the book, the author draws the reader into the parallel worlds that represent Gregory’s and Young’s work. Each presents the reader with a glimpse of Jesus in fictional stories, but stories that teach. Readers who have read Gregory’s or Young’s earlier works, will enjoy the on-going story laid out in Night With A Perfect Stranger.
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This review is based on a free electronic copy provided by the publisher. The opinions expressed are my own.
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