The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real

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The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real, by Neta Jackson

What does true forgiveness look like? Must loving one’s enemy require putting oneself, one’s loved ones and/or one’s property at risk? How do we “walk the talk” of Christ’s commandment to love one another, in our workaday lives? Are Christians any better than “non-believers”? Fiction author Neta Jackson challenges the reader with these tough questions in the third installment of her award-winning Yada Yada Prayer Group series: The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real. As the title implies, the theme is honesty, and several of the group’s members at different points in the book are tested with “getting real” with themselves and the people they are in relationship with by addressing these and other touchy issues.

Once again, the novel unfolds from the perspective of Jodi Baxter, third grade teacher from Iowa who has recently moved with her husband Denny and teenage children Josh and Amanda to a multicultural Chicago neighborhood where their all-white family is the minority. Jodi is tested in several ways throughout the novel: What is the real reason she doesn’t want her 15-year-old daughter getting closer to Jose? Why does she find it so difficult to accept help from Stu? How can she make progress with her students who need the most help? On top of finding answers to these questions, Jodi fights some serious health and emotional issues resulting from the severe auto accident that occurred in the first book of the series. Other Yada Yadas are also tested. Chanda struggles to find balance after a major change in life circumstances, Avis must decide whether to accept the courtship of her late husband’s best friend, Yo-Yo takes a stand on moving forward in her faith, Stu is confronted with a past issue she thought was resolved, and Noni is torn between being a wife and mother in the United States and being a community resource in her homeland of South Africa.

As in the other books of the series, Gets Real includes a reading group guide at the back encouraging the reader to explore how different parts of the novel apply to her own life. Question 2 addresses Jodi’s desire for “dull and boring” for a few months. It asks, “What pressure points do you have in *your* life right now? Have you considered whether God might have a redemptive purpose to ‘keeping the pressure on’?” Wow. This question really hit home for me, as I try to make a big change in my own life. The challenge is to see pressure as a driving force for positive change, and not merely added stress. Jackson demonstrates this concept throughout the book as several members face ugly truths about their personalities, relationships and pasts. Continued pressure moves them each toward healing and more honest application of the faith they profess to the lives they live, especially after a destructive confrontation occurs between members of the prayer group.

Nice touches in the novel include Jodi’s continued discovery of name meanings, Denny’s outreach to the other men affected by the prayer group, and Yo-Yo’s down-to-earth questions about scripture.

Jackson succeeds in her argument that honesty, not religious platitudes, is what makes faith real in our lives, and what will attract people to the Christian faith. I give this book 4 out of 4 stars not only because of the author’s exploration of how Christians apply their faith in relationship with each other, but also because of how she presents real issues faced by real people every day, as the world keeps turning.