Mystery

When should a personal mystery be left hidden and when must it come into the light? Buried it has the ability to harm entire lifetimes, and sometimes generations. There’s no recourse for accountability, and truth, for restoration, and healing. Yet digging it up also has the potential for emotional and psychological disaster.

Perhaps the better question is why is it important, and then, what is the motive behind the hunt. Is it purely for self-satisfaction and accolades, or out of a genuine concern for another? Sometimes those lines get blurry too.

In the historical romance “A Memory Between Us,” by Sarah Sundin, Major Jack Novak is determined to find out Ruth’s secret, despite her reservations and warnings from his friend Charlie.

“It’s got to be big,” Charlie said.

“Huh?”

“With Ruth. Something about her makes me think she’s been hurt and badly.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Watch that pride.”

Jack is falling in love with Ruth, and yet he can’t see her as clearly as Charlie does. Her secret, the mystery has become a challenge, a problem to solve. Charlie later accuses Jack of treating her as a project instead of a person. But Jack keeps pushing for an answer regardless of the consequences. And shatters Ruth’s heart even more than it already was.

Journal Prompt:

1. Put your character together with a new person that you know is going to become important in his life, whether as a friend, or mentor, or lover. What about himself is he not yet ready to reveal? How does he keep avoiding the conversation when it steers that way.

2. Plot out the steps he takes towards revealing himself with this person.