A guest post by Jennifer Q. Hunt
“We are navigating uncharted waters.”
“Then for now, we stay,” said Samuel. Though solemn, his voice carried none of the despair threatening to overcome Jeremiah as he considered countless more months in prison fighting back harder against increasing injustice.
Butler voiced his agreement, and Jeremiah echoed, “We stay.”
Yet as he looked at his prison suit and his wrists now forever scarred from his first march in chains, he wondered how on earth victory had landed him back here?
My new book Some Melodious Sonnet takes a deep dive into some issues of the 1830s, particularly the rights of the Cherokee Nation to remain on their land in Georgia. In the story, I chronicle the fight of the Protestant missionaries to take the Cherokees’ case to the United States Supreme Court. They were able to do so, but at the cost of a year and a half imprisonment by the state of Georgia. They won the case, and yet in an unexpected twist, the Cherokee people still lost their land. I’m sure for real life heroes Samuel Worcester and Elizur Butler, their suffering and sacrifice must have felt like it was all for nothing.
And yet they went on. They stayed faithful to what God had called them to do—whether that was to do time at the state penitentiary in protest of an unjust law, or to set up their ministry all over again in a new place where they could serve to an exiled and forlorn people.
Why does this incident speak to me so much? Why did I craft a historical romance around this true story? The older I get, the more I appreciate stories where everything doesn’t work out. Where I see how God worked in the lives of actual men and women and how they stayed faithful to Jesus through persecution, hardship, and defeat. Where the main characters, fictional or real, don’t necessarily know the reach of their influence or the extent of their impact, and they aren’t fixating on that anyway.
So often we hedge our decisions in effectiveness. It might be worth the sacrifice of obedience if lots of people are reached, if a huge movement begins, if a lasting legacy is founded. But what about when we obey simply because we love Jesus and we accept the small returns or lack of results that seems to follow? Is that not an even greater heroism and higher calling? Can I trust El-Roi, the God Who Sees, that He knows and will make all things right in His way and time? Even if my efforts don’t yield the results I prayed, hoped, and worked toward?
If true stories of faithfulness through injustice and uncertainty resonate with you, two more recommendations from my reading list this year:
Sowing Hope by Heather Wood. Historical fiction that tells the true story of abolitionist newspaperman and dedicated Christian Elijah Lovejoy.
Becoming Elisabeth Elliot and Being Elisabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn. Powerful two-volume biography of the famed missionary/author/speaker as you’ve never seen her before.
A lifelong storyteller, Jennifer has worked as a writer of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as an editor and ghostwriter. She has over twenty-five years of ministry writing experience for churches, pastors, and Christian ministries.
Jennifer writes fiction with faith and purpose. Her Sorrow and Song trilogy shows multi-generations as they wrestle with their place in history and following the Lord through challenging circumstances.
Back in north Georgia after several years away, Jennifer is a happy wife to Christopher and homeschool mother to four elementary-aged children.
