Lucado, Andrea.
English Lessons. New York:
Waterbrook, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-60142-0.
In this memoir, Andrea Lucado records her experiences
in England while attending Oxford Brookes University. She is careful to
distinguish it from what she calls “Oxford”,
noting the former was “more recently established” and utilized the lecture
method rather than the tutorial method employed at Oxford (6). She shares how she arrived at Oxford Brookes clinging
tightly to her reputation as the quintessential good Christian girl. She had attended an evangelical church since
birth, attended Christian school, and had personally professed faith in Christ.
However, upon her arrival at Brookes, she found herself in a spiritual
wasteland. Her description of this veritable wasteland becomes evident as she
describes Christianity through the eyes of the various individuals that crossed
her path. Lucado admits, with great candor, that she felt a sense of failure
regarding her interactions with these seeking individuals. Yet the thing that
was most changed during her year at Brookes was her view of and relationship
with God.
Admittedly, I was drawn to this book because of the
surname of the author. I knew that the style would end to be a bit more
emotional rather than cerebral, but I can appreciate that style. I felt her
fear and frustrations at various points in the book, but I was encouraged by
the relationships she could form. Her reflections regarding her experiences are
insightful. She notes, at the end, that the thing that changed the most for her
was her perception of God. Entering the wasteland called Brookes, her faith was
cut and dried, but she was worried. In
her own words, “Since birth I had spent more time inside the church than outside
of it. I had also been gifted with the ability to incessantly ask questions
about my faith …In high school there were a few dark and doubting months …I was
trying to pray and for the first time since I had become a Christian at age
nine, I felt no one was listening to me. Instead of God’s presence, I felt an
emptiness and this upset me. My logical brain told me that God wasn’t there,
and if he wasn’t there I didn’t have to follow his rules … I could do whatever
I wanted. So, I did, sort of for a few months. It was a brief, slightly
rebellious -by preacher’s daughters’ standards-time in my life. And it was
brought to an abrupt halt as soon as I got caught … Now in Oxford, in a class
of no Christians, and in a city and country that was located nowhere near the
Bible belt, I was worried that I might lose the feeling of God’s presence
again. And if I did, how would I react this time so far from home?”
(11-13). At the end of her time, she
realized that God was much bigger than the faith of her childhood – than the
cut and dried answers to which she had clung. As the time drew near for her to
leave, she walked by the River Thames, she considered her relationship with
God, stating, “…that youth and its feelings of uncertainty, constant change and
insecurity are the perpetual way of the Christian life …Our faith and how we
feel about God was never meant to be static. We should never assume that we
have ‘arrived.’ Because the moment we do, something happens that we don’t
understand, didn’t expect or don’t understand, and we are flattened by our lack
of knowledge again.” (219). On her last
day in Oxford, seated with a friend in a coffee shop, she was faced with the
awareness that her experiences in Oxford were carefully orchestrated by God,
and she was struck with his immensity and her own minuteness. And like the
overflowing River Thames, her conversations with God would continue, as she
continued practicing his presence and talking to him in the milieu of life.
Lucado’s journey is not unlike my own. Although I was
not a pastor’s daughter, I was the daughter of a church leader. I professed
faith in Christ as a young child, but became overwhelmed by doubts in
adolescence. Unlike her, my doubts drove
me to performance-based Christianity. I,
too, attended a Christian college and continued my education at a secular
university. In this educational wasteland, I would try to live out the faith I professed,
but failed miserably; however, God chose to draw me to Himself, and I realized
that it was in Christ alone I could have the assurance I so desperately sought.
As God, has grown me in faith, I have come to my own epiphany that He is bigger
than my doubts. I stand and live in the presence of an immense God. I can never
outrun Him, I can never out doubt Him, and I will never outgrow Him. I
recommend Lucado’s book to all who seek to know God on a deeper level and are
willing to take the risk of allowing Him to work in their lives in and through the
wastelands of life.
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge for
reading it and posting a review on Blogging for Books, per their terms.
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