Rain Dance by Joy DeKok -- Book Review

A touching story of unexpected friendship comes to life in Rain Dance by Joy DeKok.

Jonica and her husband Ben decide to stop fertility treatments. While at the doctor's office for her final visit, Jonica meets Stacie, a young woman with a promising law career looking to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. While their meeting is brief, the moments they share will change both their lives forever.

Both dealing with loss, Stacie and Jonica reach out to each other and forge an unusual friendship that could transform them, and their future.

Writing from her own experiences, DeKok puts together this engaging story of two women whose loss draws them together. As Jonica deals with giving up her dream of having children, Stacie mourns the baby whose life was abruptly ended by a procedure whose emotional repercussions she had never given thought to. Rather than using her faith to preach about the horrors of abortion, the author paints a realistic picture of what many post-abortive women experience. Rain Dance isn't about conversion, it's about healing; and that's where its power lies.

The other thing DeKok handled very well is Stacie's husband's reaction to finding out about the abortion. In a society that often instructs that it is the "woman's" right to choose, this novel provides insight into how being left out of such an important decision can impact a man.

Rain Dance is also about the difficulty in being judged by those who can't understand the pain of infertility. How is it that even people in her church suddenly doubt Jonica'a ability to nurture children solely because she'll never have a child of her own?

Whether you're a Jonica or a Stacie, or know one, this is a powerful, touching, and captivating story of an uncommon friendship, and how one woman uses her faith to deal with the loss of her dream and find a way to use that loss to glorify and honor God.


Title: Rain Dance
Author: Joy DeKok
Publisher: Sheaf House
ISBN: 9678-0-979485-9-2
SRP: $12.99 (U.S.)