In some ways I feel like I have always known George MacDonald. Growing up, my family read his Christmas stories every year during the season. “My Uncle Peter,” “The Gifts of the Child Christ,” and “A Scot’s Christmas Story” with several of his poems, all in one book, had been gifted to our family by dear missionary friends. That book always drew me, even as a little girl. Its jacket had long since disappeared by the time I was around and the plain, grass-green binding held no picture to attract me. But inside! Now THAT contained a treasure trove of brilliant illustrations! As I grew, I realized it hid many sparkling truth gems as well.

During elementary school, my mother read Curdie and the Princess aloud to my sister and me. I was intrigued by the fantastical characters and breathless with the exciting story line, but it was not quite time for my epiphany of George MacDonald’s value and friendship.

In fact, I have a hard time remembering the exact moment it happened. Which is another reason why he feels like a life-long friend. I think it might be similar to the experience of new parents… In just a few short hours, there is a feeling of having known this tiny person forever, and imagining life without them seems utterly impossible.

For me, that feeling toward George MacDonald began when I started reading excerpts from his sermons, his poems, and his novels. He was God’s voice to my heart, breathing new life into my weak, faltering faith.

I’ll never forget the burst of joy and freedom that set my spirit singing when I read selections like this one:

“Think, brothers and sisters, we walk in the air of an eternal Fatherhood. Every uplifting of the heart is a looking up to the Father. Graciousness and truth are around, above, and beneath us, yes, in us. When we are least worthy, then, most tempted, hardest, unkindest, let us yet commend our spirits into His hands. How the earthly father would love a child who would creep into his room with a troubled face and sit down at his feet, saying when asked what he wanted, ‘I feel so naughty, papa, and I want to get good.’ Would he say to his child, ‘How dare you! Go away, and be good, and then come to me?’ Will we dare to think God would send us away if we came thus?”

My home growing up was a place of warmth and happiness due to my parents, who exemplified God’s love. But when I was around five, we moved churches which brought us under preaching that was more Calvinistic and leaned toward representing God “as a great King on a grand throne, thinking how grand He is, and making it the business of His being and the end of His universe to keep up His glory,” as George MacDonald so aptly describes it in the first of his Unspoken Sermons. Though there are many wonderful people I love and precious things I learned in that environment, this view of God began to distort my childlike faith and steal the joy I possessed since coming to Jesus as a child.

That is why passages like the one above had such an impact on me. I felt like a person dying of starvation who had suddenly found a never-ending banquet table spread with soul-nourishing food. I could not get enough. This was the God my heart hungered for.  And here was a man who knew Him so intimately that his words could bridge hundreds of years with vitality and relevancy.

I am constantly amazed how often he expresses exactly what I am feeling and facing in my personal walk with the Lord or interactions with my human brothers and sisters. It happens all the time through a poem or quote posted on the Facebook group or a statement embedded in one of his novels.

Although I have experienced the ministry of each genre, his novels hold a special place in my heart. The characters in them are exceptionally life-like to me. Through them, George MacDonald captures human nature in all its nuances with outstanding accuracy, vitality, and wisdom. While their vices or virtues may loom larger than life, he infuses them with such humanity that they are one hundred percent relatable. So much so that those same vices and virtues deepen my understanding and inspire me to nobler living. I often come away from reading his novels with the delightful expectation of meeting those characters in person one day, only to feel distinct disappointment when I remember they are “merely” characters in a story.  But I like to imagine that the day I look George MacDonald in the face it will feel like meeting Malcolm, David, Cosmo, Kirsty, and the whole host of beautiful friends and examples he gave me, in person. For in George MacDonald I have found a kindred spirit, father, mentor, brother, and friend all in one.