Of Friends and Family

As a teenager, Jacob Hardwick dedicated his life to the Lord and to the Call of the Ministry. Following that call, he spoke at churches, youth meetings, taught Sunday school, and worked with his pastor and youth minister. But shortly before he graduated from high school, his life is turned upside down and he leaves the church, his calling, and his friends behind to seek success and wealth.Many years later, a chance encounter with a beloved minister brings him back into the fold and...
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As a teenager, Jacob Hardwick dedicated his life to the Lord and to the Call of the Ministry. Following that call, he spoke at churches, youth meetings, taught Sunday school, and worked with his pastor and youth minister. But shortly before he graduated from high school, his life is turned upside down and he leaves the church, his calling, and his friends behind to seek success and wealth.Many years later, a chance encounter with a beloved minister brings him back into the fold and into the ministry, much to the displeasure of his socialite wife and spoiled adult children.A trip back home reunites him with an old friend, Rachel Sullivan. And, later, a meeting with one of his parishioners, a former mobster, tears his life apart and leaves him wondering if he will lose everything, including his ministry.Not written as a typical Christian novel, "Of Friends and Family" is a story of life the way it really is, and of faith, of committment to the Lord, and how thru the hardest of trials, the Lord will show Himself faithful, sometimes even overcoming the mistakes of our past to open new doors in the future.....if we will but trust Him.And it is a story of the power of love.Are th characters perfect Christians? No, they are normal people who fail, who turn away from the Lord, and who repent and return. It is a story of their journey of faith that brings them together as friends, and ultimately, as 'family'.