Dangerous Love

Dangerous Love by Ray Norman is a risky, beautifully written autobiography about a missionary and his family’s mission in a place called Mauritania, located in an Islamic Republic. Ray was raised in the familiarity of missionary work. His parents were medical missionaries in various places over the world. It felt only natural to him to go into missionary work himself. He went to college for studies in agriculture and water resources engineering, so that he could assist people he encounters during his missionary work with their water supply systems. Ray met a woman, Helene, in the Niger Republic while he was on one of his mission trips. Helene was on a short term missionary trip herself. She later became his wife. They both had the same passion for helping others and telling others about God while traveling abroad to do it. Together, they joined the World Vision missionary company and began their calling working for God as a family. Later on, they had a son, Nathaniel, and a daughter, Hannah. This book goes into the journey of not only Ray, who is telling the story, but his family as well.

This book gently touched every edge of my heart when it came to viewing the extent of Ray and his family’s work for the Lord. Not only did he write it in a way to help me see what had happened in Mauritania, but he wrote it in a way that helped me FEEL what had happened. I laughed and I cried. I felt angry, then immediate shame, because as a Christian, I don’t know if I would’ve been able to handle the situation that Ray and his family was put in like they did.

The climax of the story definitely had me on the edge of my seat! I was literally reading it while I was cooking my family supper and couldn’t put the book down. The climax of the story tells about an event that happened after the radical Islamic attack on America’s soil on 9/11. Ray and his family were in Mauritania, an Islamic Republic. They had just gone through a period of strong tension between them, as Americans, and the people of Mauritania. Things were just starting to lighten up. Ray and his daughter, Hannah, were going to spend an afternoon at a nearby beach when their world was shattered to pieces.

Even after the climax of the story began to calm down, I was left wanting to know what happened next and how things were resolved. I was not disappointed. Ray didn’t leave out any detail and he didn’t ramble about things; he made perfect sense. He wrote how things were resolved and it made me like this book even more. He wrote about each step of how he and his family picked up the pieces and put them back together again. He wrote about how, even though they had been through something so tragic, they still felt led to do God’s will.

The ending of this book is a breath of fresh air. The best part of this story is that it really happened. It renewed my hope in the Christians that I have as brothers and sisters through Christ. Ray updates his story ten years after the beginning of the story and doesn’t disappoint with the details, again. Even though they had made peace of the tragic thing that took place, they still have some healing to do. Because they are human and that’s what makes this book so relatable, to me.

“My family’s story is just a small subset of a greater and far more amazing story that has yet to reach its conclusion. The story of God’s love- his reconciliation and redemption in the world and his wondrous, caring, and patient ways- is still unfolding. Our stories never really end. They keep going, just as the hand of a loving God never stops moving.” Ray Norman Dangerous Love.

With much humility Ray touches on how much we should love and forgive other people Lately, we’ve seen so many negative things about Muslims and how they’re affecting our world. What we have failed to realize is that we’re affecting their world as well. The more that we become closed off and ignorant to them, the more we are showing them that we hate them. That’s right, I said hate. As Christians, we are supposed to “love our neighbors” (Mark 12:31). If we don’t make ourselves available and forgive the ones that have hurt us, then how are we supposed to TRULY love like God intends for us to? If we don’t love them, then that only leaves hate, right? Right. Ray Norman’s story isn’t a safe story, it’s definitely dangerous. God’s love is dangerous and that’s why the title of this book is, “Dangerous Love”.

I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone. Especially those that are planning on fulfilling God’s commission for their life. God has a plan for each and every one of us. As Christians, we are supposed to fulfill our commission and listen to God’s plan for us.

“As Christians our convictions are understandably rooted in our understanding of Scripture. But convictions alone can serve little purpose when they do not inform the way we live our lives." -Ray Norman Dangerous Love.