The Alliance (26 page)

I guess you could say I had a slightly different childhood. When I was six and my brother ten, our family stood in a field at the camp where my parents were caretakers, and my parents told us that this was where we would meet if we were separated when the world “blew up.” From this field, our family would travel by foot to our friends’ elaborate, fairy-tale home and live in the blue room hidden behind their bookshelves.

My parents did not mean to instill fear in us. Now that I’m a parent, I see that they were trying to assuage their own fears by coming up with a plan. But I was born with an overactive imagination, and therefore this plan planted in me the seed of fear—and subsequently, a driving need to control my environment.

I wish I could say I uprooted this fear once I became an adult, but after I had my firstborn daughter, my fear grew worse, for not only did I have to control
my
environment;
I also had to control hers. When my eldest was six months old, an unnerving exchange with a logger deepened the roots of my fear and caused me to ask whether I would ever use lethal force to protect myself and my family. I believed I would, even though, growing up, I sensed my own father would adhere to his pacifist heritage if placed in such a situation.

The final puzzle piece for my book,
The Alliance
, slid into place when my father told us that we needed heirloom seeds to last us until the next harvest season. I remember standing in my darkened kitchen and repeating that phrase to myself—
the harvest season
. Initially, I believed this would be the title of the book, but over time, I knew a community having enough food to last until the next harvest season was only a small element of the story. The larger element came from the protagonist, Leora Ebersole, and her driving need to control her environment, even after society crumbles around her, because she believes if she controls her environment, she will be able to keep her orphaned family safe.

With every one of my books, God’s been faithful to allow me to experience some portion of whatever topic I’m addressing.
The Alliance
has been no exception. My family and I moved from Tennessee to Wisconsin shortly before I finished the rough draft. Eight weeks later, my husband went in for a CAT scan, which revealed a tumor near his brain stem. He had surgery the next morning, and all
through that night next to his hospital bed, I feared for my family. I feared for our two young daughters—our firstborn was two and a half and our second, four months old at the time. I feared that I would be a widow, living on a grid-tie solar-powered farm six hundred miles away from our immediate families. In a matter of hours, one of my worst fears had come true, and I didn’t know how to handle it.

However, all through my Garden of Gethsemane night, during the hours my husband was in surgery, and in the critical weeks that followed the craniotomy, I felt God’s presence as if he was sitting beside me. I then understood that God had allowed me to face one of my greatest fears so that I would learn that inner peace can never be acquired through my futile attempts to control my environment—and therefore keep my family safe. Moreover, I can only achieve inner peace if I continually surrender my life and the lives of my family to the One who called us into being.

So I pray, dear reader, that you will discover the author of the peace that passes all understanding and daily surrender your life—and the lives of your family—to him.

Jolina Petersheim is the bestselling author of
The Outcast
, which
Library Journal
called “outstanding . . . fresh and inspirational” in a starred review and named one of the best books of 2013. That book also became an ECPA, CBA, and Amazon bestseller and was featured in
Huffington Post
’s Fall Picks,
USA Today
,
Publishers Weekly
, and the
Tennessean
.
CBA Retailers + Resources
called her second book,
The Midwife
, “an excellent read [that] will be hard to put down,” and
Romantic Times
declared, “Petersheim is an amazing new author.” Jolina’s nonfiction writing has been featured in
Reader’s Digest
,
Writer’s Digest
, and
Today’s Christian Woman
.

Jolina and her husband share the same unique Amish and Mennonite heritage that originated in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. After years of living in the mountains of Tennessee, they moved to a farm in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin, where they live with their two young daughters. Follow Jolina's blog at
www.jolinapetersheim.com
.

1. Have you ever given much thought to the dangers of an EMP? How likely do you think it is that something like this might really happen? Is it something you should prepare for, and if so, how might you prepare? How do you balance being prepared with being controlled by fear?
   
2. How do Leora’s beliefs change throughout the story? Was this progression portrayed realistically? Do you think Leora will ever come back around to her pacifist beliefs? Why or why not? Have your own convictions changed from childhood to adulthood? What caused them to change?
   
3. Moses feels anger toward God, believing that God has spared him while letting others around him suffer and die. Has there ever been a time in your life when
   God’s plan felt like a punishment? How would you encourage Moses to move past his anger?
   
4. How does Moses’s faith change throughout the book? How do you think he will continue to grow or change spiritually in the next book?
   
5. Describe Leora’s feelings toward Anna. Is Leora right to feel guilty about Anna’s accident? Have you ever struggled with a similar situation? How did—or might—it affect your outlook and decisions?
   
6. How do Leora’s feelings toward her father shift over the course of the story? How do you think Leora should have reacted to her father’s return?
   
7. Were you surprised by the identity of the person stealing food from the community? What did you think of the way Leora reacted? Where would you like to see this thread go in the next book?
   
8. When Moses and Jabil go into town in search of a tractor, Moses vacillates on how the community views their plan. Though they do not plan to pillage or harm anyone, they are prepared to steal to better themselves and the community. If placed in the same position, would you be willing to break the law in order to save yourself or your family? Why or why not?
   
9. In what ways are Moses and Jabil similar? In what ways are they different? If placed in Leora’s position, which man would you find it easier to trust with your heart? Why?
   
10. Leora admits, “I yearn to be with Moses, as if he is my North Star in this black hole of madness, but my duty to my family forces me to remain lost.” Could the two coexist, or must Leora make a choice? Faced with a choice between love and a responsibility to your family, how would you decide?
    
11. Why does Leora think her grandmother might not be as anxious as everyone else despite the upheaval they’re experiencing? How have you seen this illustrated (or contradicted) in people you know? In general, why do you think we are so fearful for our lives and those of the people we love?
    
12. Which characters, if any, would you like to know more about? What would you like to see happen to them as the story concludes in the next book?