Ever wonder if certain things that happen randomly can be considered as signs from God? On October 12, 1977 at 8:47a.m, three very different individuals will soon be brought together in a very unexpected way when they all see the same thing but see different reasons behind that encounter with a flash of light.
Bingham Murdock flew into town on a star one day. At exactly 8:47am he banked the silver Lockheed JetStar at such an angle that the rays of the sun glanced off the wing and shot a glint of silver through the city of New Orleans. He'd never felt such kindred spirit with a city before. This was a town with open pockets and attitude. He is the owner of Lone Star Incorporated who is looking for a new business venture to build a hotel in the French Quarter.
Amalise Catoir is a young lawyer with the firm of Mangen & Morris who has returned to her office on the sixteenth floor of the First Merchant Bank Building, after the recent death of her husband, Philip Sharp, who abused her during their marriage. As she stands at the window looking at the people below, it seems as if nothing had changed. It is only through the actions of her friend Jude, who she thinks she loves, that she has returned to work. As she took in the view, a quicksilver glint in the sky drew her attention. For a moment she tracked a small plane as it descended toward the Lakefront Airport, sunlight winking off a wing like a shooting star aimed straight for her. She wondered if she were the only person in the world who had just seen the momentary flash of light. In her office she shivered with the odd fancy that the flash somehow signified a fateful connection between the giver and the recipient of the light.
But someone else saw it, too. About a mile away, a small boy with delicate oriental features sat alone on the front porch of a sagging house in the Faubourg Marigny, watching the other children play. In the distance he saw a small plane shining in the sun. He watched it for an instant, shading his eyes with his hands squinting. Then a bright flash of light came at him like a burst of gunfire, and he flinched remembering.
Bingham Murdock, Amalise Catoir and a six-year-old Cambodian refugee in foster care are all brought together in what most would consider a random encounter much like the television series Touch shows how we are all connected through a string of random encounters that lead us to one another and impact our lives in profound ways. In the novel, Chasing the Wind, by Pamela Binnings Ewen, these three individuals will find out what God has in store for each of them and how that one encounter will change them in very different and similar spiritual ways through a flash of light.
I received Chasing the Wind compliments of B & H Publishing Group and Christian Fiction Blog Alliance for my honest review and found this story to have a profound impact on the so-called chance encounters we have with people we meet. Sometimes God places these people in our lives for reasons that may not seem clear to us at the time, but in looking back we can see how He uses them to bring about His purpose in our lives. I rate this novel a 5 out of 5 stars and look forward to many more novels from Pamela Billings Ewen in the future.
