Follow only the guide who's been where you want to go.The task ahead of you is not as great as the power within you. You cannot help people if you are always with people. Happiness is a choice, misery is an option. Wisdom lives only on the far side of pain. Never love life more that the reason for which it was given to you. Stop living only when you die.
Calvin Miller's revelatory tale is actually a story within a story linked by the desire to find personal meaning in each of these Seven Truths. Told from the perspective of Anton, a ten-year-old farm boy who has moved with his parents from Louisiana to Chicago, the main narrative begins when Anton's unemployed father moves on to Duluth seeking work. With money for only one month's rent on their apartment, Anton and his mother, Chistiana, are eventually evicted and forced to take to the streets with their belongings.
Nearly starved and frozen, they are rescued by a kind man named Hajji, who offers to shelter them under his protective tarp and give them food. On the way to their new shelter, however, Anton is hit by a truck and his legs left paralyzed. Feeling at once cursed by his handicap yet grateful for Hajji's care, Anton questions God's love and compassion.
A devout Christian, Hajji reassures Anton by reading his own story of finding God's love. Hajji begins telling his story at twilight, after they settle in. And his story continues in the form of a little red book that he leaves with Anton and his mother when he disappears the next morning--taking Chistiana's diamond wedding ring with him.
Gravely disappointed, confused, and feeling betrayed, Anton and his mother are nonetheless thankful for the cart and rations that Hajji has left behind. The two survive for the next few days on the food that keeps mysteriously appearing in the cart, and pass the time by reading the intriguing little red book.
Divided into seven chapters, one for each of the Seven Truths, the book takes Anton and Chistiana into the world of Hajji's adolescence in Montenegro, where he is assigned the task of delivering his father's medicine to the typhoid-plagued village of Ishmada. Marking Hajji's own transformation from insolent teenager to doctor and healer, Hajji's story ultimately teaches Anton about trusting in God's love and compassion, and fills him "with a warm sense of nearness of God." An intriguing pageturner, The Book of Seven Truths is a beautifully crafted work that reveals faith's extraordinary ability to provide hope in the most difficult of circumstances.
Calvin Miller, the bestselling author of The Singer Trilogy and The Book of Jesus, masterfully weaves together a poignant tale within a tale bound by the common thread of a mysterious man who forever changes the lives of a Depression-era family in Chicago. A spiritually uplifting work, The Book of Seven Truths speaks to the enduring powers of faith and demonstrates the true meaning of generosity and forgiveness.
"Calvin Miller is one of the most prolific and protean writers of the Christian faith. His knowledge is vast, his eye is tender and watchful of the human detail, and his skill at communication makes him a singer and a teacher both."
--Walter Wagnerin
Walking with Saints: "Calvin has done us a favor. He has spelunked the caverns of the mystics and returned with jewels. Thanks, Calvin, for giving us this treasure."
--Max Lucado
The Singer Trilogy: "His book if full of light--a powerful extended metaphor of incarnation and redemption."
--Luci Shawa
