Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: NAL Hardcover (April 4, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0451217756

Book Description – from Amazon.com
From the Essence bestselling author of The Prodigal Husband comes an inspiring novel about one woman’s spiritual journey to overcome the mistakes of her past-and face the truths of an inescapable future. A year ago, successful career woman Sheila Moore left her home on the South Carolina coast to escape the pain of loving a man who would never love her back-her married business partner, Jake. Now Sheila has returned to Charleston and the past, into the guarded lives of Jake and his suspicious wife, Tori, and into an unexpected journey to find peace, joy, and love.

This was a good cozy read to enjoy on a nice day. I was familiar with Sheila from the novel, The Prodigal Husband.

Her relationship with the co-owner of her company, Jake, caused a disastrous rift in Jake’s marriage, a rift that was eventually healed. Sheila is bitter because of the amount of hard knocks she had to endure in life. She’s always felt like an ugly person, a person whom God does not love. Nicolas encourages her to read her Bible and to accept God’s love, however, Sheila has a hard time doing this because she is now facing a major battle in her life: multiple sclerosis (MS).

Since she is now suffering from MS, she needs to rely on others to help care for herself. She also finds the need to forgive others in her life whom she felt have done her wrong. She nurses hatred in her heart for her father, who abandoned both Sheila and her mother when Sheila was five. She’s upset with her mother for raising her in a poor neighborhood, while speaking a dialect that brings Sheila much shame.

Since this is an inspirational novel, you can probably guess how it ends.

This book reminds me of another Jacquelin Thomas novel entitled A Change Is Gonna Come:

The reason why Defining Moments reminds me of A Change Is Gonna Come is because of the illness battle. One of the characters suffers a stroke in this novel, and she has to lean on her faith in order to see her through her ordeal.

Defining Moments also reminds me of an old Heartsong Presents title by Kristin Billerbeck entitled To Truly See:

The reason why Defining Moments reminds me of To Truly See is because of the MS battle. Like Sheila in Defining Moments, the main character (can’t recall her name) in To Truly See is unsaved in the beginning. She’s forced to learn to lean on others when she’s diagnosed with MS, and must rely on a wheelchair for her mobility. She must learn to accept God’s grace and learn to lean on Him.

Cecelia Dowdy