Where the Light Fell by Philip Yancey 

Yancey's memoir - how on earth did a boy with such a troubled church background become such a gifted writer of God's word?


Where the Light Fell
By Philip Yancey
Hodder 2022
ISBN: 978-1529364224
Reviewed by Janet Quarry

 

Philip Yancey's memoir, Where the Light Falls, is breathtakingly honest. Honest of the mental illnesses of his mother and brother; of the hypocrisy in his church and home life, of his own hypocrisy; and of the dreadfulness of segregation in the life, and the churches, of America's deep south. How on earth did a boy with such a background become such a gifted writer of God's word?

It is now no wonder to me that Yancey writes books about pain and grace. I told a friend about the memoir and described how Yancey met Jesus. She rather sharply asked what I meant by 'meeting Jesus' and I was nonplussed. I'd assumed we spoke the same language!

Yancey was at Bible college but having heard it all before, many, many times, and having played the religious hero game, he was deeply cynical. His heart had begun to soften after meeting Janet, his wife to be. Then, one day while reading the story of the Good Samaritan, he realised he was the one broken and in a ditch. Jesus stooped down to wipe his face with tenderness – and Yancey spat in Jesus' face. Abruptly he stopped reading and brooded over what he'd seen. His cockiness was shattered and later he said to Janet that he 'may have had the first authentic religious experience of his life'. This was a man brought up by a mother deep in the ways of the American Christian South, where church had defined and ordered his life from its beginning.

It seems Jesus meets us in different ways. John Wesley talks of his heart being 'strangely warmed' on hearing someone reading Luther's Preface to Romans. For one friend of mine it was reading Mark's story of the Gerasene Demoniac in the darkness of his student room. For me it was hearing a talk about Jesus being the only way to God. Something happens. We have that 'one off experience' and suddenly our lives are never the same again. I suppose that's how some people describe falling in love.

For Christians, and for Philip Yancey, it is falling in love with Jesus. Such a strange thing it must seem to the world around us! But it happens – at least to many of us – and Where the Light Falls tells us God can redeem a life even when the church has done its best to twist everything holy and turn all away. 
 

Janet Quarry has been working with Christian missions and charities for over 30 years