Lost Message

by Grace Livingston Hill

138 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1983

About the author

also wrote under the pseudonym Marcia MacDonald
also published under the name Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

A popular author of her day, she wrote over 100 novels and numerous short stories of religious and Christian fiction. Her characters were most often young female ingénues, frequently strong Christian women or those who become so within the confines of the story.

niece to Isabella MacDonald Alden

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Lost Message is a collection of three short stories by Grace Livingston Hill. Originally published in 1938, the three stories are the title story, plus "Dwelling" and "The Minister's Son."

In "The Lost Message" a young pastor finds his attention drawn away from his work, his church, and his people, by a wealthy church member who wants to monopolize his time and attention. Elliot Rand is proud of how well Rev. Tresevant can preach and wants to show him off to his other wealthy friends. He takes the pastor on his yacht for a vacation, squires him to the country club, and introduces him to a man who is willing to spring for an expensive stained glass window for the church if he is enamored of Rev. Tresevant. Afraid to lose the patronage of his rich benefactor, the pastor goes along with all Elliot's plans, even though he knows he needs to be working on his sermon, visiting the sick, and caring for the members of his parish. What will it take for the Holy Spirit to help John Tresevant understand where his real priorities should lie?

In "Dwelling" beautiful Angela is engaged to David, but since he is off in a foreign country temporarily, she has gone on with her own plans to create a business decorating rooms and designing houses. She is even designing a house for her and David to live in when he eventually returns home, but she is brought up short by her friend Ellen, who reminds her that it is the delight and privilege of a husband to support his wife and prepare their future home. This is meant to be a type of allegory of Christians, who while waiting for their Lord's return, go on about business as usual, instead of looking forward to their "marriage" and their future home. Angela gets it right in the end...

In "The Minister's Son" Aunt Faith has returned to visit her sister after several years abroad. Myra is very worried about her eldest son, who seems to have rejected his Christian faith and become very bitter and disillusioned. She asks Faith to be especially attentive to Barry and see whether she can figure out where he has gone wrong and convince him to return to his Christian heritage. Faith realizes that only the Holy Spirit can convict and convince and that her place is to pray and listen. She soon realizes that Barry is seeing a lot of hypocrisy - not just from other Christians who "talk the talk" but don't walk the walk - but even among his own family, where there is constant bickering and selfishness. He is especially incensed when he visits a revival service with his aunt and hears his parents and siblings giving testimonies about Jesus and then they go home and are fighting among each other. The crux of the story comes when Barry parrots back to them their own testimony from the revival service as a way of breaking up the fights. Ashamed of how their witness has been tarnished by their actions, the family repents - a beginning for reconciling Barry back to the family and his faith.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was on a Grace Livingston Hill kick a while back and read several of her novels. They are always quaint and old-fashioned, sometimes a little preachy, but almost always a nice relaxing read.