Title: A Heart for
Freedom
Author: Chai Ling
Pages: 329
Year: 2011
Publisher: Tyndale
Note: I received a
complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review. Follow my other reviews at http://seekingwithallyurheart.blogspot.com/ and on twitter @lcjohnson1988
This is
a story that took a long time to reach the publisher—more than 20 years. It is the true story of real life events from
one of the student leaders of the Tiananmen Square uprising. She has a longing for a free China and
democracy for men and women. The author
tells her story from some of her earliest memories as a child up to her present
day life. This is not fiction, and the events told are sometimes painful to read.
The
narrative begins with our main character and author, Chai Ling, as a little
girl in rural China living with her family.
Her parents must travel a lot as they are in the military and trained as
doctors. Grandma is brought to live with
them to take care of the three children.
Grandma, however, can’t take care of three small children so they send
Chai Ling to live with a foster family on a farm at the age of five. They pay the farmer a bag of grain to take
care of her. She is so homesick the
farmer returns her to her home. Her
father is angry at her for not being able to handle the separation and the fact
that she cost him a bag of grain. She
has brought shame to her family. This sets the tone for the relationship between father and
daughter.
As Chai
Ling gets to be around 10-12, she is in charge of taking care of her younger
brother and sister along with her grandma.
She enters high school and begins to get recognition for her academic
performance. Now, her father is proud of
her temporarily. He is proud of what she
has done, but not of whom she is. The
atmosphere in the house though is repressive and Chai longs to be free. She studies hard so she can skip the last
year of high school and go away to college in Beijing. At college, she thinks she will be free. Once at college though she exchanges the low
opinion of her father for a string of men with similar viewpoints. Most think it their right to abuse her
physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Chai Ling longs for freedom and love.
Instead, she experiences more personal hardship through forced
abortions, being accused as a thief, and finally running for her life as a
leader of the students protesting at Tiananmen Square.
She
escapes to the United States through a long series of constant moves and great
physical hardship. She attends Princeton
and Harvard. She is able to bring her
sister, brother-in-law, and brother to America from China. She longs to bring her father, but doesn’t
have enough money. She meets an American
man she falls in love with. He is a
Christian, and she at that point is a Buddhist.
She agrees to learn more about God, but makes no further commitment than
that. She begins her own business and
becomes successful.
Throughout
her life, she has been searching for freedom and love. She loves her father, but doesn’t find true
love or acceptance from him. Through her
various other relationships, she is searching for that elusive love and
freedom. She has a place in her heart
that she can’t seem to fill. Finally,
she is shown the love of Jesus and is willing to open her mind to know
more. She comes to realize that only God
can fill that place in her heart. She
accepts Jesus as her Savior and the healing and forgiveness He offers. She still has a heart for China, especially
woman, who have aborted their children, either willingly or unwillingly. She knows the guilt, heartache and anger that
can accompany this. She realizes only
God can save China and firmly believes that he will. Her years of searching led her to Christ. Are you searching to fill a void in your
heart? Are you willing to hear about
Jesus and open your mind and heart?
My rating for this book is three
stars.
