A Writer’s Dramatic Testimony to God’s Providence

by Roger Kurtz

Testify! Like Mary Magdalene at the tomb, like the liberated Gerasene from around the lake, like the Twelve at their commissioning, we too are advised to tell, recount, announce, and proclaim.

Bonnie Moyer’s new memoir Fearless: Living God’s Gift of Faith is one such testimonial. In these pages she recounts her eventful and dramatic life, driven by a desire to share her experience of God’s presence and provision. Moyer’s book covers her birth and early years in Western Pennsylvania’s coal country, a turbulent young adulthood, diverse and evolving careers, and marriage to a Mennonite pastor. Her motives are clear: to testify to “God’s love, protection, strength, and hope,” thereby blessing and encouraging the rest of us.

Organized into 60 bite-size vignettes, Moyer’s life story is fast-paced and eminently readable. For those of us who know her, the book is full of surprises and anecdotes that may cause a few jaw-drops. For all readers it offers an energetically told tale of personal challenges, spunky resilience, and epiphanies.

At the heart of Moyer’s stories are three dramatic theophanies—moments where she directly hears the voice of God and senses His tangible presence in a time of need. One comes as a five-year-old, a second on her wedding day, and a third during life-threatening surgery. These encounters fill her with a rock-solid conviction of God’s presence, protection, and healing. “You will have the strength for this,” God tells her.

Moyer’s memoir is additionally a testimony to the ways American families were affected by the nation’s changing political economy following World War II. Big Pharma looms large, with its experiments in reproductive medicine. Labor-saving appliances, mail-order catalogs, the freedom and danger of highways, and the astounding achievements of the space race all impact the opportunities and imaginations of intelligent and ambitious girls. Moyer’s childhood in a university town within a regional mining economy becomes a parable for the emerging tensions in America society during this time.

Globalization is also here, particularly when Moyer’s career shifts to retail management for Ten Thousand Villages. She travels the globe to source fair-trade merchandise from developing countries. As a long-serving host for the International Visitor Exchange Program, she welcomes into her home young adults from Nepal, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Brazil, Indonesia, and elsewhere. The sharing of food in international contexts becomes a touchstone.

Moyer’s testimony offers a nuanced meditation on family and its variations. There may be some people with uncomplicated relationships to parents, children, and siblings, but that is probably not the norm anywhere, and it is certainly not her experience. This is a book about creating family in spite of challenges, in the context of the church and supported by deep personal faith.

Moyer is drawn to the ancient Japanese art of kintsugi, a technique of restoring broken pottery with a special lacquer mixed with gold dust. Instead of hiding the breaks and cracks, this technique highlights them, turning brokenness and imperfection into a source of unique beauty and value.

Fearless is a kintsugi memoir, recounting a life that includes both breakage and beautiful repair work. We can be grateful to Moyer for summoning the courage and persistence to share it with us.

Along with two other area authors, Bev Benner Miller and Lisa Stenger, Moyer will be featured at an event on the morning of Saturday, September 12 9:30-11:30am at Zion Mennonite Church in Souderton, PA titled “Your Story Matters.”