My friend, Christy Miller

When I was a kid, like 4th through 8th grade, I read about every Christian YA series available at the local library. I was at that age when you can read and absorb information at ridiculously fast speeds, and I didn't have a social life. The combination yielded copious reading time. Hundreds and hundreds of books. Maybe even a thousand.
There were countless ones I loved, and if you wanted I would give you a list of them. But, among my favorite were books by Bill Myers. Then, as I got older, I discovered these girly-ish books by Robin Gunn called The Christy Miller Series. I think maybe my BFF bethany told me about them, but however I ran across them, I was in love with the first book. Probably because it involved Hawaii and I've always had this thing about surfing and Hawaii. Don't ask.
Anyway, I read all of those books and I read them again. As an adult, I purchased them and read them again. Why? They're actually kind of cheesy. Christy's world is kind of idealistic, a little picture perfect, even though she faces real-life problems that are realistic. But there's just something special about those books. You feel like you know Christy, like she's your friend.
Really, she was a lot like my real best friend Bethany. And I'm a lot like Christy's fictional best friend, Katie. So maybe that was partly why I loved them.
The thing I really loved as a love-sick pre-teen, was the romance part of the books. It wasn't really over the top. It wasn't even totally the focus of the stories. But there's this guy. Todd. OK, so he's pretty much everyone's perfect dream of a guy. Unrealistically. But there's something endaring about both of them and the way their friendship develops into love. It takes its time. It's focused on friendship. Even though Christy's full of dreams and hopes, she and Todd are careful and patient, and refreshingly un-dramatic about their feelings. You have to read it to understand. It's kind of Anne Shirley/Gilbert Blythe like.
I recently picked up the compilation series of the books and last night I treated myself to one of them. Todd's away on a surfing competition and no one's heard from him for a long time, so Christy sends him a little card with the Bible verse Philippians 1:5-7 in it. The "confident that he who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it... I pray for you... I hold you in my heart." Then, six weeks later, Christy finally gets a response. On a coconut, mailed from Hawaii. Todd wrote Phil 1:9 on it and said, "I hold you in my heart too".
How's that for romance? Pretty great.
Anyway, the point of all that is just to say how influential those books were in my life. I wanted what Todd and Christy had because I could see it meant more than all of the other quick dating relationships going on around me (And Christy tries those too, of course). Some how, when you read all of them, you see the the way Christy is guarding her heart for her future husband. She writes letters to him and keeps them in a little box and then she prays about him even though she doesn't know who he is. It doesn't sound as good when I write it out, but it's cool in the book.

And it changed me. I'm thankful for Christy Miller because she introduced me to the idea of friendationship (a phrase coined by my youth pastor later). And because of Christy Miller I didn't want to spend time investing in the wrong people. Because of Todd, I felt like I could hold out for a great guy.
Reading in general made me want to be a writer. But reading these books by Robin Jones Gunn made me realize that fictional stories can have transcendent meaning. That you can learn just as much from characters as you can from real people. And I for one am thankful that I learned from Christy's mistakes rather than making them myself. ;) (And, for the record, my husband is WAY better than Todd. He was in high school and he still is. Except he doesn't surf. Although he would be able to if we lived anywhere near an ocean because he's one of those people who can do anything he tries. Tangent over.)
Eventually Robin Jones Gunn wrote "Christy and Todd, the college years" and finished off the three-book series with their wedding. Now, the best news I've heard in a long time, she's written and is writing the newest installment: Christy and Todd, the married years. I can't wait to read them!
Also I can't wait to have my kids read the Christy Miller series as they get older. Now it might be a little outdated... the original ones I read had tapes, VHS, roller skating, and jean skirts. But hey, truth is truth. And Christy is timeless.