Laurel is a young woman who is sad and depressed about her mom's health and her father's affair at her school graduation party. She flirts with Brad who flirts back and then takes her home. Her father get angry with her and asks if Laurel has prayed that day. Laurel is invited to Brad's house where he give her a glass wine and some particular smelling brown cigarette.When she starts feeling funny, he take her to his bedroom to check something on the computer, he throws her on bed and rapes her. When Laurels gets home, the traumatized girl learns that her mom died at the hospital same day, and her father reveals that he plans to marry his mistress three days after his wife's funeral Laurel is shocked and she cannot stand the young woman her father makes her new step-mother Laurel's life takes some strange turns in the powerful novel The christian Life I Knew Not but in the end she finds self-reliance she tries to follow her faith in the Lord