I had the wonderful opportunity to spend the past two days in Washington DC at a Women of Faith conference. I simply can't express what a moving experience this was.
First I have to tell of my journey to get there. I got an email from Thomas Nelson Publishing announcing an opportunity to win two tickets to this amazing experience. I have wanted to go to this conference for years so I applied. Of course, I never dreamed I would win the tickets. Then about two weeks ago - there they were in the mail. I almost cried. I scared my daughter to death. I was so emotional I couldn't speak and she had no idea what came in the mail. And then I realized - I couldn't go. I had to work. As I said, I never dreamed I would win so I didn't ask for time off. And I thought that if by some chance I did win, I would get an email or something - some sort of notice other than the tickets just showing up two weeks before the event - something that I would have time to ask off work. I resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't be able to go. The problem - I couldn't find the email about the opportunity and I couldn't remember which publisher had sent it (I review books for a few different companies) so I didn't know who to call and tell that I would have to decline so that they could get the tickets to someone else.
So I decided to see what I could do about getting off work. I figured Friday wouldn't be too much of a problem as I knew someone who could work for me. I prayed and felt peace with being able to go Friday and have to miss the Saturday sessions. And then on Monday when I went to work my supervisor said "I can make do without you on Saturday if you still want the day off". I didn't know whether to fall to my knees or burst into tears. I actually did neither as I wasn't sure how this wonderful young man would handle my emotions. lol. But the most awesome thing is that God worked everything out so that I could be there - from me never imaging that I could win the tickets, to not being able to find the email to contact the publisher, to getting the time off work. All things are possible with God!
Friday morning my daughter and I got up early, packed up our things and headed out. We drove about an hour to the Metro station and began the journey - we had never ridden the Metro before. But God went before us. I asked a lady in the parking lot a question about the parking. When we got inside the terminal she was in there and she walked us step by step through getting a parking pass and tickets to get us to DC and back. What an absolute angel. And we were off.
The conference is so very well organized. Everyone was lovely from the folks taking the tickets and checking bags as you enter, to the vendors selling the books, bags, shirts, etc., to the people handing out the box lunches, and of course the people on stage - the host, worship team, speakers and musical guests.
Before I speak to the specifics of the conference I would like to offer a few gentle suggestions to help make it a more enjoyable experience for everyone attending.
Please be on time. We missed a chunk of a speaker's talk because of the women who were standing in the aisle talking about where they wanted to sit and crawling over people. Also remember that if you sit in the back rows (which we did so we could sneak out to the bathroom) there will be people who ask the usher's advice on where to sit and voices do carry a bit - you also get a good bit of the noise in the hallway.
Please don't talk on your cell phone.
And please be aware as you are getting ready that you will be sitting very close to other ladies. Heavy perfumes are really not a good idea. Many people are either allergic or very sensitive.
Okay now on to the fun stuff.
The day starts with a lovely group of four ladies who lead you in worship. These talented ladies have a great passion for what they do and it is shows in their spirited singing. And they come back time and again with more and more amazing songs.
The speakers we were privileged to hear were Sheila Walsh, Henry Cloud, Lisa Harper, Nicole Johnson and Luci Swindoll. Natalie Grant was the musical guest.
We had to miss the Friday evening session where Mary, Mary and Ken Davis performed.
Friday Sheila Walsh and Henry Cloud each spoke twice and then did a question and answer session. On Saturday Sheila Walsh spoke again, giving her own personal testimony which was so incredibly moving. Lisa Harper was next to give us a glimpse into her personal story. Nicole Johnson followed up with not only her story but later in the day did a wonderful dramatic presentation. And Luci Swindoll, who I was most anxious to hear, gave a wonderfully funny talk. All these ladies bared their souls and were completely transparent to us. It was humbling to be allowed a glimpse of the things that were so personal to them but they were willing to share with all of us to help us in our personal walk with God.
Natalie Grant gave a very moving concert. If you ever have the chance to hear her sing It Is Well With My Soul - don't miss it! I have to mention - we had magnificent seats and the speakers walked up the aisle right beside us and sat about ten rows or so in front of us. Natalie is the tiniest little thing - and it is amazing the big beautiful sounds that come out of that tiny little body.
And one other thing that I noticed - and it's probably silly for me to mention it but, I'm a shoe girl. All these ladies, who walked around on the stage for sometimes a half hour or more at a time, had the most amazing high heels. lol.
So I sing my praises to God for being able to go, to be able to treat my daughter to the experience, for the transparency of the speakers and the loving kindness of all the people we met along the way. It was an amazing experience - one I hope I will have the chance to repeat - and one that I encourage every woman who can to experience.
And I will leave you with my favorite quote of the conference: "The Shepherd knows where to find you" (Sheila Walsh).
Jody
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
The First Gardner
Jeremiah Williams has been tending the gardens of the Tennessee governor’s mansion for over twenty-five years. And like most first families who have come and gone, this one has stolen his heart.
Mackenzie and her husband, Governor Gray London, have struggled for ten years to have a child and are now enjoying a sweet season of life—anticipating the coming reelection and sending their precious daughter, Maddie, off to kindergarten—when a tragedy tears their world apart. As the entire state mourns, Mackenzie falls into a grief that threatens to swallow her whole.
Though his heart is also broken, Jeremiah realizes that his gift of gardening is about far more than pulling weeds and planting flowers. It’s about tending hearts as well. As he uses the tools that have been placed in his hands, he gently begins to cultivate the hard soil of Mackenzie’s heart, hoping to help her realize what it took him years to discover.
A Southern tale of loss, love, and living, The First Gardner reminds us that all of life is a gift, but our heart is the most valuable gift of all.
Denise Hildreth Jones has crafted a mesmerizing story of love, loss and finding your way through pain.
With an amusing cast of characters who jump off the page and into your life, you feel like you are a part of the story.
This was not a book that I couldn't put down and read all at once, it was a book that needed to be read slowly and savored.
We are treated to points of view of Mack, Gray, Mack's mother Eugenia as well as Jeremiah.
You'll laugh, you'll cry and maybe you'll learn something. I know I did.
Highly recommended.
Jody
My copy was graciously provided by Tyndale Media.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Grandma's Attic books
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the books:
Still More Stories from Grandma’s Attic
and
Treasures from Grandma’s Attic
David C. Cook; Reprint edition (August 1, 2011)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
The late Arleta Richardson grew up an only child in Chicago, living in a hotel on the shores of Lake Michigan. Under the care of her maternal grandmother, she listened for hours to stories from her grandmother’s childhood. With unusual recall, Arleta began to write these stories for an audience that now numbers over two million. “My grandmother would be amazed to know her stories have gone around the world,” Arleta said.
SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Grandma did what? You might be surprised. Back in the 1880’s, when she was a young girl named Mabel, trouble seemed to follow her everywhere. She and her best friend, Sarah Jane, had the best intentions at home and at school, but somehow clumsiness and mischief always seemed to intrude. Whether getting into a sticky mess with face cream, traveling to the big city, sneaking out to a birthday party or studying for the spelling bee, Mabel’s brilliant ideas only seemed to show how much she had to learn. And each of her mishaps turned into lessons in honesty, patience and responsibility.
Arleta Richardson’s beloved series, Grandma’s Attic, returns with Still More Stories from Grandma’s Attic and Treasures from Grandma’s Attic, the third and fourth books in the refreshed classic collection for girls ages 8 to 12. These compilations of tales recount humorous and poignant memories from Grandma Mabel’s childhood on a Michigan farm in the late 1800’s. Combining the warmth and spirit of Little House on the Prairie with a Christian focus, these books transport readers back to a simpler time to learn lessons surprisingly relevant in today’s world.
Even though these stories took place over a hundred years ago, there are some things about being a girl that never change. Just like Mabel, girls still want to be prettier or more independent. It’s all part of growing up. But the amazing thing is—Grandma felt the same way! Sometimes your brother teases you or someone you thought was a friend turns out to be insincere. Sometimes you’re certain you know better than your parents, only to discover to your horror that they might have been right. It’s all part of growing up.
Richardson’s wholesome stories have reached more than two million readers worldwide. Parents appreciate the godly values and character they promote while children love the captivating storytelling that recounts childhood memories of mischief and joy. These books are ideal for homes, schools, libraries or gifts and are certain to be treasured. So return to Grandma’s attic, where true tales of yesteryear bring timeless lessons for today, combining the appeal of historical fiction for girls with the truth of God’s Word. Each captivating story promotes godly character and values with humor, understanding and warmth.
Product Details:
Still More Stories from Grandma’s Attic:
List Price: $6.99
Reading level: Ages 9-12
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: David C. Cook; Reprint edition (August 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0781403812
ISBN-13: 978-0781403818
Treasures from Grandma’s Attic:
Reading level: Ages 9-12
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: David C. Cook; Reprint edition (August 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0781403820
ISBN-13: 978-0781403825
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTERS:
Still More Stories from Grandma’s Attic
When Grandma Was a Little Girl
One hundred years! What a long, long time ago that is! Not very many people are still alive who can remember that far back. But through the magic of stories, we can be right there again.
When I was a little girl, I thought no one could tell a story like my grandma.
“Tell me about when you were a little girl,” I would say. Soon I would be back on the farm in northern Michigan with young Mabel—who became my grandmother—her mother and father, and her brothers, Reuben and Roy.
The old kitchen where I sat to hear many of Grandma’s stories didn’t look the same as when she was a little girl. Then there was no electricity nor running water. But my grandma still lived in the house she grew up in. I had no trouble imagining all the funny jams that Grandma and her best friend, Sarah Jane, got into. Or how it felt to wear long flannel stockings and high-buttoned shoes.
From the dusty old attic to the front parlor with its slippery furniture, Grandma’s old house was a storybook just waiting to be opened. I was fortunate to have a grandma who knew just how to open it. She loved to tell a story just as much as I loved to hear one.
Come with me now, back to the old kitchen in that Michigan farmhouse, and enjoy the laughter and tears of many years ago....
1
Face Cream from Godey’s Lady’s Book
Receiving mail always excited me. I never had to be told to get the mail for Grandma on my way home from school. But sometimes the mail became even more important. Like the time I was watching for something I had ordered from Woman’s Home Companion.
When the small package finally arrived, my face revealed how excited I was.
“What did you get a sample of this time?” Grandma asked as I came in proudly carrying the precious box.
“You’ll see. Just wait till I show you,” I said, promising Grandma the box held something special.
Quickly I tore the wrapping paper off the small box. Inside was a jar of skin cream for wrinkles.
Grandma laughed when she saw it. “You certainly don’t need that,” she said. “Now it might do me some good if those things ever really worked.”
“You aren’t wrinkled, Grandma,” I protested. “Your face is nice and smooth.”
“Perhaps so. But not because of what I’ve rubbed on it. More than likely I’ve inherited a smooth skin.”
She took the jar of cream and looked at the ingredients “This doesn’t look quite as dangerous as some stuff Sarah Jane and I mixed up one day. Did I ever tell you about that?”
“No, I’m sure you didn’t,” I replied. “Tell me now.”
Grandma picked up her crocheting, and I settled back to listen to a story about Grandma and her friend, Sarah Jane, when they were my age.
***
Sarah Jane had a cousin who lived in the city. This cousin often came to stay at Sarah Jane’s for a few days. She brought things with her that we were not accustomed to seeing.
One morning as Sarah Jane and I were walking to school together, Sarah Jane told me some very exciting news. “My cousin Laura will be here tomorrow. She’s going to stay all next week. Won’t that be fun?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “I’m glad she’s coming. What do you think she’ll bring this time?”
“Probably some pretty new dresses and hats,” Sarah Jane guessed. “She might even let us try them on.”
“Oh, I’m sure she wouldn’t want us to try on her dresses. But maybe she wouldn’t mind if we peeked at ourselves in the mirror to see how the hats looked.”
Laura arrived the next day with several new hats. She amiably agreed that we might try them on.
They were too big, and had a tendency to slide down over our noses. But to us, they were the latest fashion.
As we laid the hats back on the bed, Sarah Jane spied something else that interested her. It was a magazine for ladies. We had not seen more than half a dozen magazines in our lives, so this was exciting.
“Oh, Laura,” Sarah Jane cried, “may we look at your magazine? We’ll be very careful.”
“Why, yes. I’m not going to be reading it right away. Go ahead.”
Eagerly we snatched the magazine and ran out to the porch. The cover pictured a lady with a very fashionable dress and hat, carrying a frilly parasol. The name of the magazine was Godey’s Lady’s Book.
“Ooh! Look at the ruffles on her dress!” Sarah Jane exclaimed. “Wouldn’t you just love to have one dress with all those ribbons and things?”
“Yes, but there’s little chance I’ll ever have it,” I replied. “Ma wouldn’t iron that many ruffles for anything. Besides, we’re not grown up enough to have dresses like that. It looks like it might be organdy, doesn’t it?”
“Mmm-hum,” Sarah Jane agreed. “It looks like something soft, all right. And look at her hair. It must be long to make that big a roll around her head.”
We spread the magazine across our laps and studied each page carefully. Nothing escaped our notice. “I sure wish we were grown up,” Sarah Jane sighed. “Think how much prettier we’d be.”
“Yes, and how much more fun we could have. These ladies don’t spend all their time going to school and doing chores. They just get all dressed up and sit around looking pretty.”
We looked for a moment in silence; then Sarah Jane noticed something interesting. “Look here, Mabel. Here’s something you can make to get rid of wrinkles on your face.”
I looked where she was reading.
Guaranteed to remove wrinkles. Melt together a quantity of white wax and honey. When it becomes liquid, add the juice of several lemons. Spread the mixture liberally on your face and allow it to dry. In addition to smoothing out your wrinkles, this formula will leave your skin soft, smooth, and freckle free.
“But we don’t have any wrinkles,” I pointed out.
“That doesn’t matter,” Sarah Jane replied. “If it takes wrinkles away, it should keep us from getting them too. Besides,” she added critically, “it says it takes away freckles. And you have plenty of those.”
I rubbed my nose reflectively. “I sure do. Do you suppose that stuff really would take them off?”
“We can try it and see. I’ll put some on if you will. Where shall we mix it up?”
This would be a problem, since Sarah Jane’s mother was baking in her kitchen. It would be better to work where we wouldn’t have to answer questions about what we were doing.
“Let’s go to your house and see what your mother is doing,” Sarah Jane suggested.
We hurriedly returned the magazine to Laura’s bedroom and dashed back outdoors.
“Do you have all the things we need to put in it?” Sarah Jane asked.
“I know we have wax left over from Ma’s jelly glasses. And I’m sure we have lemons. But I don’t know how much honey is left.
“I know where we can get some, though.” I continued. “Remember that hollow tree in the woods? We found honey there last week.”
Soon we were on our way to collect it in a small pail.
“This is sure going to be messy and sticky to put on our faces,” I commented as we filled the pail.
“Probably the wax takes the sticky out,” Sarah Jane replied. “Anyway, if it takes away your freckles and makes our skin smooth, it won’t matter if it is a little gooey. I wonder how long we leave it on.”
“The directions said to let it dry,” I reminded her. “I suppose the longer you leave it there, the more good it does. We’ll have to take it off before we go in to supper, I guess.”
“I guess so,” Sarah Jane exclaimed. “I don’t know what your brothers would say. But I’m not going to give Caleb a chance to make fun of me.”
I knew what Reuben and Roy would say, too, and I was pretty sure I could predict what Ma would say. There seemed to be no reason to let them know about it.
Fortune was with us, for the kitchen was empty when we cautiously opened the back door. Ma heard us come in and called down from upstairs, “Do you need something, Mabel?”
“No, Ma’am,” I answered. “But we might like a cookie.”
“Help yourself,” Ma replied. “I’m too busy tearing rags to come down right now. You can pour yourselves some milk too.”
I assured her that we could. With a sigh of relief, we went to the pantry for a kettle in which to melt the wax and honey.
“This looks big enough,” Sarah Jane said. “You start that getting hot, and I’ll squeeze the lemons. Do you think two will be enough?”
“I guess two is ‘several.’ Maybe we can tell by the way it looks whether we need more or not.”
“I don’t see how,” Sarah Jane argued. “We never saw any of this stuff before. But we’ll start with two, anyway.”
I placed the pan containing the wax and honey on the hottest part of the stove and pulled up a chair to sit on. “Do you suppose I ought to stir it?” I inquired. “It doesn’t look as though it’s mixing very fast.”
“Give it time,” Sarah Jane advised. “Once the wax melts down, it will mix.”
After a short time, the mixture began to bubble.
“There, see?” she said, stirring it with a spoon. “You can’t tell which is wax and which is honey. I think it’s time to put in the lemon juice.” She picked up the juice, but I stopped her.
“You have to take the seeds out, first, silly. You don’t want knobs all over your face, do you?”
“I guess you’re right. That wouldn’t look too good, would it?”
She dug the seeds out, and we carefully stirred the lemon juice into the pan.
“Umm, it smells good,” I observed.
Sarah Jane agreed. “In fact, it smells a little like Ma’s cough syrup. Do you want to taste it?”
“Sure, I’ll take a little taste.” I licked some off the spoon and smacked my lips. “It’s fine,” I reported. “If it tastes that good, it will certainly be safe to use. Let’s take it to my room and try it.”
We carefully lifted the kettle from the stove. Together we carried the kettle upstairs and set it on my dresser.
“It will have to cool a little before we put it on,” I said.
“What if the wax gets hard again? We’ll have to take it downstairs and heat it all over.”
“It won’t,” I assured her. “The honey will keep it from getting too hard.” By the time the mixture was cool enough to use, it was thick and gooey—but still spreadable.
“Well, here goes,” Sarah Jane said. She dipped a big blob out and spread it on her face. I did the same. Soon our faces were covered with the sticky mess.
“Don’t get it in your hair,” I warned. “It looks like it would be awfully hard to get out. I wonder how long it will take to dry?”
“The magazine didn’t say that. It would probably dry faster outside in the sun. But someone is sure to see us out there. We’d better stay here.... I wish we had brought the magazine to look at.”
“We can look at the Sears catalog,” I suggested. “Let’s play like we’re ordering things for our own house.”
We sat down on the floor and spread the catalog out in front of us. After several minutes, Sarah Jane felt her face.
“I think it’s dry, Mabel,” she announced, hardly moving her lips. “It doesn’t bend or anything.”
I touched mine and discovered the same thing. The mask was solid and hard. It was impossible to move my mouth to speak, so my voice had a funny sound when I answered her.
“So’s mine. Maybe we’d better start taking it off now.”
We ran to the mirror and looked at ourselves.
“We sure look funny.” Sarah Jane laughed the best she could without moving her face. “How did the magazine say to get it off?”
Suddenly we looked at each other in dismay. The magazine hadn’t said anything about removing the mixture, only how to fix and spread it on.
“Well, we’ve done it again,” I said. “How come everything we try works until we’re ready to undo it? We’ll just have to figure some way to get rid of it.”
We certainly did try. We pushed the heavy masks that covered our faces. We pulled them, knocked on them, and tried to soak them off. They would not budge.
“I think we used too much wax and not enough honey,” Sarah Jane puffed as she flopped back down on the bed.
“That’s certainly a great thing to think of now,” I answered crossly. “The only way to move wax is to melt it. And we certainly can’t stick our faces in the fire!”
“Mine feels like it’s already on fire. I don’t think this stuff is good for your skin.”
“You’re going to have to think about more than that,” I told her. “Or this stuff will be your skin. There has to be some way to get it off.”
“We’ve tried everything we can think of. We’ll just have to go down and let your rna help us.”
That was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. But I could see no other alternative. Slowly we trudged down to the kitchen.
Ma was working at the stove, and she said cheerfully, “Are you girls hungry again? It won’t be long until suppertime, so you’d better not eat ....”
She turned around as she spoke. When she spotted us standing in the doorway, her eyes widened in disbelief.
“What on earth? ... What have you done to yourselves?”
I burst into tears. The sight of drops of tears running down that ridiculous mask must have been more than Ma could stand. Suddenly she began to laugh. She laughed until she had to sit down.
“It’s not funny, Ma. We can’t get it off! We’ll have to wear it the rest of our lives!”
Ma controlled herself long enough to come over and feel my face. “What did you put in it?” she asked. “That will help me know how to take it off.”
We told her.
“If you two ever live to grow up, it will only be the Lord’s good mercy. The only thing we can do is apply something hot enough to melt the wax,” Ma told us quickly.
“But we boiled the wax, Ma,” I cried. “You can’t boil our faces!”
“No, 1won’t try anything as drastic as that. I’ll just use hot towels until it gets soft enough to pull away.”
After several applications, we were finally able to start peeling the mixture off. As it came loose, our skin came with it.
“Ouch! That hurts,” I cried.
But Ma could not stop. By the time the last bits of wax and honey were removed, our faces were fiery red and raw.
“What did we do wrong?” Sarah Jane wailed. “We made it just like the magazine said.”
“You may have used the wrong quantities, or left it on too long,” Ma said. “At any rate, I don’t think you’ll try it again.”
“I know I won’t,” Sarah Jane moaned. “I’m going to tell Laura she should ignore that page in her magazine.” She looked at me. “The stuff did one thing they said it would, Mabel. I don’t see any freckles.”
“There’s no skin left, either,” I retorted. “I’d rather have freckles than a face like this.”
“Never mind.” Ma tried to soothe us. “Your faces will be all right in a couple of days.”
“A couple of days!” I howled. “We can’t go to school looking like this!”
***
“We did, though.” Grandma laughed as she finished the story. “After a while we were able to laugh with the others over our foolishness.”
I looked at the little jar of cream that had come in the mail.
“I don’t think I’ll use this, Grandma. I guess I’ll just let my face get wrinkled if it wants to!”
When Grandma Was a Little Girl
One hundred years! What a long, long time ago that is! Not very many people are still alive who can remember that far back. But through the magic of stories, we can be right there again.
When I was a little girl, I thought no one could tell a story like my grandma.
“Tell me about when you were a little girl,” I would say. Soon I would be back on the farm in northern Michigan with young Mabel—who became my grandmother—her mother and father, and her brothers, Reuben and Roy.
The old kitchen where I sat to hear many of Grandma’s stories didn’t look the same as when she was a little girl. Then there was no electricity nor running water. But my grandma still lived in the house she grew up in. I had no trouble imagining all the funny jams that Grandma and her best friend, Sarah Jane, got into. Or how it felt to wear long flannel stockings and high-buttoned shoes.
From the dusty old attic to the front parlor with its slippery furniture, Grandma’s old house was a storybook just waiting to be opened. I was fortunate to have a grandma who knew just how to open it. She loved to tell a story just as much as I loved to hear one.
Come with me now, back to the old kitchen in that Michigan farmhouse, and enjoy the laughter and tears of many years ago....
1
Face Cream from Godey’s Lady’s Book
Receiving mail always excited me. I never had to be told to get the mail for Grandma on my way home from school. But sometimes the mail became even more important. Like the time I was watching for something I had ordered from Woman’s Home Companion.
When the small package finally arrived, my face revealed how excited I was.
“What did you get a sample of this time?” Grandma asked as I came in proudly carrying the precious box.
“You’ll see. Just wait till I show you,” I said, promising Grandma the box held something special.
Quickly I tore the wrapping paper off the small box. Inside was a jar of skin cream for wrinkles.
Grandma laughed when she saw it. “You certainly don’t need that,” she said. “Now it might do me some good if those things ever really worked.”
“You aren’t wrinkled, Grandma,” I protested. “Your face is nice and smooth.”
“Perhaps so. But not because of what I’ve rubbed on it. More than likely I’ve inherited a smooth skin.”
She took the jar of cream and looked at the ingredients “This doesn’t look quite as dangerous as some stuff Sarah Jane and I mixed up one day. Did I ever tell you about that?”
“No, I’m sure you didn’t,” I replied. “Tell me now.”
Grandma picked up her crocheting, and I settled back to listen to a story about Grandma and her friend, Sarah Jane, when they were my age.
***
Sarah Jane had a cousin who lived in the city. This cousin often came to stay at Sarah Jane’s for a few days. She brought things with her that we were not accustomed to seeing.
One morning as Sarah Jane and I were walking to school together, Sarah Jane told me some very exciting news. “My cousin Laura will be here tomorrow. She’s going to stay all next week. Won’t that be fun?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “I’m glad she’s coming. What do you think she’ll bring this time?”
“Probably some pretty new dresses and hats,” Sarah Jane guessed. “She might even let us try them on.”
“Oh, I’m sure she wouldn’t want us to try on her dresses. But maybe she wouldn’t mind if we peeked at ourselves in the mirror to see how the hats looked.”
Laura arrived the next day with several new hats. She amiably agreed that we might try them on.
They were too big, and had a tendency to slide down over our noses. But to us, they were the latest fashion.
As we laid the hats back on the bed, Sarah Jane spied something else that interested her. It was a magazine for ladies. We had not seen more than half a dozen magazines in our lives, so this was exciting.
“Oh, Laura,” Sarah Jane cried, “may we look at your magazine? We’ll be very careful.”
“Why, yes. I’m not going to be reading it right away. Go ahead.”
Eagerly we snatched the magazine and ran out to the porch. The cover pictured a lady with a very fashionable dress and hat, carrying a frilly parasol. The name of the magazine was Godey’s Lady’s Book.
“Ooh! Look at the ruffles on her dress!” Sarah Jane exclaimed. “Wouldn’t you just love to have one dress with all those ribbons and things?”
“Yes, but there’s little chance I’ll ever have it,” I replied. “Ma wouldn’t iron that many ruffles for anything. Besides, we’re not grown up enough to have dresses like that. It looks like it might be organdy, doesn’t it?”
“Mmm-hum,” Sarah Jane agreed. “It looks like something soft, all right. And look at her hair. It must be long to make that big a roll around her head.”
We spread the magazine across our laps and studied each page carefully. Nothing escaped our notice. “I sure wish we were grown up,” Sarah Jane sighed. “Think how much prettier we’d be.”
“Yes, and how much more fun we could have. These ladies don’t spend all their time going to school and doing chores. They just get all dressed up and sit around looking pretty.”
We looked for a moment in silence; then Sarah Jane noticed something interesting. “Look here, Mabel. Here’s something you can make to get rid of wrinkles on your face.”
I looked where she was reading.
Guaranteed to remove wrinkles. Melt together a quantity of white wax and honey. When it becomes liquid, add the juice of several lemons. Spread the mixture liberally on your face and allow it to dry. In addition to smoothing out your wrinkles, this formula will leave your skin soft, smooth, and freckle free.
“But we don’t have any wrinkles,” I pointed out.
“That doesn’t matter,” Sarah Jane replied. “If it takes wrinkles away, it should keep us from getting them too. Besides,” she added critically, “it says it takes away freckles. And you have plenty of those.”
I rubbed my nose reflectively. “I sure do. Do you suppose that stuff really would take them off?”
“We can try it and see. I’ll put some on if you will. Where shall we mix it up?”
This would be a problem, since Sarah Jane’s mother was baking in her kitchen. It would be better to work where we wouldn’t have to answer questions about what we were doing.
“Let’s go to your house and see what your mother is doing,” Sarah Jane suggested.
We hurriedly returned the magazine to Laura’s bedroom and dashed back outdoors.
“Do you have all the things we need to put in it?” Sarah Jane asked.
“I know we have wax left over from Ma’s jelly glasses. And I’m sure we have lemons. But I don’t know how much honey is left.
“I know where we can get some, though.” I continued. “Remember that hollow tree in the woods? We found honey there last week.”
Soon we were on our way to collect it in a small pail.
“This is sure going to be messy and sticky to put on our faces,” I commented as we filled the pail.
“Probably the wax takes the sticky out,” Sarah Jane replied. “Anyway, if it takes away your freckles and makes our skin smooth, it won’t matter if it is a little gooey. I wonder how long we leave it on.”
“The directions said to let it dry,” I reminded her. “I suppose the longer you leave it there, the more good it does. We’ll have to take it off before we go in to supper, I guess.”
“I guess so,” Sarah Jane exclaimed. “I don’t know what your brothers would say. But I’m not going to give Caleb a chance to make fun of me.”
I knew what Reuben and Roy would say, too, and I was pretty sure I could predict what Ma would say. There seemed to be no reason to let them know about it.
Fortune was with us, for the kitchen was empty when we cautiously opened the back door. Ma heard us come in and called down from upstairs, “Do you need something, Mabel?”
“No, Ma’am,” I answered. “But we might like a cookie.”
“Help yourself,” Ma replied. “I’m too busy tearing rags to come down right now. You can pour yourselves some milk too.”
I assured her that we could. With a sigh of relief, we went to the pantry for a kettle in which to melt the wax and honey.
“This looks big enough,” Sarah Jane said. “You start that getting hot, and I’ll squeeze the lemons. Do you think two will be enough?”
“I guess two is ‘several.’ Maybe we can tell by the way it looks whether we need more or not.”
“I don’t see how,” Sarah Jane argued. “We never saw any of this stuff before. But we’ll start with two, anyway.”
I placed the pan containing the wax and honey on the hottest part of the stove and pulled up a chair to sit on. “Do you suppose I ought to stir it?” I inquired. “It doesn’t look as though it’s mixing very fast.”
“Give it time,” Sarah Jane advised. “Once the wax melts down, it will mix.”
After a short time, the mixture began to bubble.
“There, see?” she said, stirring it with a spoon. “You can’t tell which is wax and which is honey. I think it’s time to put in the lemon juice.” She picked up the juice, but I stopped her.
“You have to take the seeds out, first, silly. You don’t want knobs all over your face, do you?”
“I guess you’re right. That wouldn’t look too good, would it?”
She dug the seeds out, and we carefully stirred the lemon juice into the pan.
“Umm, it smells good,” I observed.
Sarah Jane agreed. “In fact, it smells a little like Ma’s cough syrup. Do you want to taste it?”
“Sure, I’ll take a little taste.” I licked some off the spoon and smacked my lips. “It’s fine,” I reported. “If it tastes that good, it will certainly be safe to use. Let’s take it to my room and try it.”
We carefully lifted the kettle from the stove. Together we carried the kettle upstairs and set it on my dresser.
“It will have to cool a little before we put it on,” I said.
“What if the wax gets hard again? We’ll have to take it downstairs and heat it all over.”
“It won’t,” I assured her. “The honey will keep it from getting too hard.” By the time the mixture was cool enough to use, it was thick and gooey—but still spreadable.
“Well, here goes,” Sarah Jane said. She dipped a big blob out and spread it on her face. I did the same. Soon our faces were covered with the sticky mess.
“Don’t get it in your hair,” I warned. “It looks like it would be awfully hard to get out. I wonder how long it will take to dry?”
“The magazine didn’t say that. It would probably dry faster outside in the sun. But someone is sure to see us out there. We’d better stay here.... I wish we had brought the magazine to look at.”
“We can look at the Sears catalog,” I suggested. “Let’s play like we’re ordering things for our own house.”
We sat down on the floor and spread the catalog out in front of us. After several minutes, Sarah Jane felt her face.
“I think it’s dry, Mabel,” she announced, hardly moving her lips. “It doesn’t bend or anything.”
I touched mine and discovered the same thing. The mask was solid and hard. It was impossible to move my mouth to speak, so my voice had a funny sound when I answered her.
“So’s mine. Maybe we’d better start taking it off now.”
We ran to the mirror and looked at ourselves.
“We sure look funny.” Sarah Jane laughed the best she could without moving her face. “How did the magazine say to get it off?”
Suddenly we looked at each other in dismay. The magazine hadn’t said anything about removing the mixture, only how to fix and spread it on.
“Well, we’ve done it again,” I said. “How come everything we try works until we’re ready to undo it? We’ll just have to figure some way to get rid of it.”
We certainly did try. We pushed the heavy masks that covered our faces. We pulled them, knocked on them, and tried to soak them off. They would not budge.
“I think we used too much wax and not enough honey,” Sarah Jane puffed as she flopped back down on the bed.
“That’s certainly a great thing to think of now,” I answered crossly. “The only way to move wax is to melt it. And we certainly can’t stick our faces in the fire!”
“Mine feels like it’s already on fire. I don’t think this stuff is good for your skin.”
“You’re going to have to think about more than that,” I told her. “Or this stuff will be your skin. There has to be some way to get it off.”
“We’ve tried everything we can think of. We’ll just have to go down and let your rna help us.”
That was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. But I could see no other alternative. Slowly we trudged down to the kitchen.
Ma was working at the stove, and she said cheerfully, “Are you girls hungry again? It won’t be long until suppertime, so you’d better not eat ....”
She turned around as she spoke. When she spotted us standing in the doorway, her eyes widened in disbelief.
“What on earth? ... What have you done to yourselves?”
I burst into tears. The sight of drops of tears running down that ridiculous mask must have been more than Ma could stand. Suddenly she began to laugh. She laughed until she had to sit down.
“It’s not funny, Ma. We can’t get it off! We’ll have to wear it the rest of our lives!”
Ma controlled herself long enough to come over and feel my face. “What did you put in it?” she asked. “That will help me know how to take it off.”
We told her.
“If you two ever live to grow up, it will only be the Lord’s good mercy. The only thing we can do is apply something hot enough to melt the wax,” Ma told us quickly.
“But we boiled the wax, Ma,” I cried. “You can’t boil our faces!”
“No, 1won’t try anything as drastic as that. I’ll just use hot towels until it gets soft enough to pull away.”
After several applications, we were finally able to start peeling the mixture off. As it came loose, our skin came with it.
“Ouch! That hurts,” I cried.
But Ma could not stop. By the time the last bits of wax and honey were removed, our faces were fiery red and raw.
“What did we do wrong?” Sarah Jane wailed. “We made it just like the magazine said.”
“You may have used the wrong quantities, or left it on too long,” Ma said. “At any rate, I don’t think you’ll try it again.”
“I know I won’t,” Sarah Jane moaned. “I’m going to tell Laura she should ignore that page in her magazine.” She looked at me. “The stuff did one thing they said it would, Mabel. I don’t see any freckles.”
“There’s no skin left, either,” I retorted. “I’d rather have freckles than a face like this.”
“Never mind.” Ma tried to soothe us. “Your faces will be all right in a couple of days.”
“A couple of days!” I howled. “We can’t go to school looking like this!”
***
“We did, though.” Grandma laughed as she finished the story. “After a while we were able to laugh with the others over our foolishness.”
I looked at the little jar of cream that had come in the mail.
“I don’t think I’ll use this, Grandma. I guess I’ll just let my face get wrinkled if it wants to!”
************************************************
Treasures from Grandma's Attic
Cousin Agatha
My best friend, Sarah Jane, and I were walking home from school on a cold November afternoon.
“Do you realize, Mabel, that 1886 is almost over? Another year of nothing important ever happening is nearly gone.”
“Well, we still have a good bit of life ahead of us,” I replied.
“You don’t know that,” Sarah Jane said darkly, “We’re thirteen and a half. We may already have lived nearly a third of our allotted time.”
“The O’Dells live to be awfully old,” I told her. “So, unless I get run down by a horse and buggy, I’ll probably be around awhile.”
We walked along in silence. Then suddenly Sarah Jane pulled me to the side of the road.
“Here’s the horse and buggy that could keep you from becoming an old lady,” she kidded. We turned to see my pa coming down the road.
“Want to ride the rest of the way, girls?” he called. We clambered into the buggy, and Pa clucked to Nellie.
“What did you get in town?” I asked.
“Some things for the farm and a letter for your ma.” Around the next bend, Pa slowed Nellie to a halt. “Your stop, Sarah Jane.”
“Thanks, Mr. O’Dell.” Sarah Jane jumped down. “I’ll be over to study later, Mabel. ‘Bye.”
“Who’s the letter from?” I asked Pa.
“Can’t tell from the handwriting. We’ll have to wait for Ma to tell us.”
When Ma opened the letter, she looked puzzled. “This is from your cousin Agatha,” she said to Pa. “Why didn’t she address it to you, too?”
“If I know Aggie, she wants something,” Pa declared. “And she figured you’d be more likely to listen to her sad story.”
Ma read the letter and shook her head at Pa. “She just wants to come for Thanksgiving. Now aren’t you ashamed of talking that way?”
“No, I’m not. That’s what Aggie says she wants. You can be sure there’s more there than meets the eye. Are you going to tell her to come ahead?”
“Why, of course!” Ma exclaimed. “If I were a widowed lady up in years, I’d want to be with family on Thanksgiving. Why shouldn’t I tell her to come?”
Pa took his hat from the peg by the door and started for the barn, where my older brothers were already at work. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he remarked as he left.
“What did Pa warn you about?” I asked as soon as the door closed behind him. “What does Cousin Agatha want?”
“I don’t believe Pa was talking to you,” Ma replied. “You heard me say that she wants to come for Thanksgiving.”
“Yes, but Pa said—”
“That’s enough, Mabel. We won’t discuss it further.”
I watched silently as Ma sat down at the kitchen table and answered Cousin Agatha’s letter.
Snow began to fall two days before the holiday, and Pa had to hitch up the sleigh to go into town and meet the train.
“It will be just our misfortune to have a real blizzard and be snowed in with that woman for a week,” he grumbled.
“Having Aggie here a few days won’t hurt you,” Ma said. “The way you carry on, you’d think she was coming to stay forever!”
Pa’s look said he considered that a distinct possibility. As I helped Ma with the pies, I questioned her about Cousin Agatha.
“Has she been here before? I can’t remember seeing her.”
“I guess you were pretty small last time Agatha visited,” Ma replied. “I expect she gets lonely in that big house in the city.”
“What do you suppose she wants besides dinner?” I ventured.
“Friendly company,” Ma snapped. “And we’re going to give it to her.”
When the pies were in the oven, I hung around the window, watching for the sleigh. It was nearly dark when I heard the bells on Nellie’s harness ring out across the snow.
“They’re coming, Ma,” I called, and Ma hurried to the door with the lamp held high over her head. The boys and I crowded behind her. Pa jumped down from the sleigh and turned to help Cousin Agatha.
“I don’t need any assistance from you, James,” a firm voice spoke. “I’m perfectly capable of leaving any conveyance under my own power.”
“She talks like a book!” Roy whispered, and Reuben poked him. I watched in awe as a tall, unbending figure sailed into the kitchen.
“Well, Maryanne,” she said, “it’s good to see you.” She removed her big hat, jabbed a long hat pin into it, and handed the hat to me. “You must be Mabel.”
I nodded wordlessly.
“What’s the matter? Can’t you speak?” she boomed.
“Yes, ma’am,” I gulped nervously.
“Then don’t stand there bobbing your head like a monkey on a stick. People will think you have no sense. You can put that hat in my room.”
I stared openmouthed at this unusual person until a gentle push from Ma sent me in the direction of the guest room.
After dinner and prayers, Pa rose with the intention of going to the barn.
“James!” Cousin Agatha’s voice stopped him. “Surely you aren’t going to do the chores with these two great hulking fellows sitting here, are you?”
The two great hulking fellows leaped for the door with a speed I didn’t know they had.
“I should guess so,” Cousin Agatha exclaimed with satisfaction. “If there’s anything I can’t abide, it’s a lazy child.”
As she spoke, Cousin Agatha pulled Ma’s rocker to the stove and lowered herself into it. “This chair would be more comfortable if there were something to put my feet on,” she said, “but I suppose one can’t expect the amenities in a place like this.”
I looked at Ma for some clue as to what “amenities” might be. This was not a word we had encountered in our speller.
“Run into the parlor and get the footstool, Mabel,” Ma directed.
When Cousin Agatha was settled with her hands in her lap and her feet off the cold floor, I started the dishes.
“Maryanne, don’t you think Mabel’s dress is a mite too short?”
Startled, I looked down at my dress.
“No,” Ma’s calm voice replied. “She’s only thirteen, you know. I don’t want her to be grown up too soon.”
“There is such a thing as modesty, you know.” Cousin Agatha sniffed.
Pa and the boys returned just then, so Ma didn’t answer. I steered an uneasy path around Cousin Agatha all evening. For the first time I could remember, I was glad when bedtime came.
The next day was Thanksgiving, and the house was filled with the aroma of good things to eat. From her rocker, Cousin Agatha offered suggestions as Ma scurried about the kitchen.
“Isn’t it time to baste the turkey, Maryanne? I don’t care for dry fowl.”
“I see the boys running around out there with that mangy dog as though they had nothing to do. Shouldn’t they be chopping wood or something?”
“I should think Mabel could be helping you instead of reading a book. If there’s one thing I can’t abide . . . “
“Mabel will set the table when it’s time,” Ma put in. “Maybe you’d like to peel some potatoes?”
The horrified look on Cousin Agatha’s face said she wouldn’t consider it, so Ma withdrew her offer.
A bump on the door indicated that the “mangy dog” was tired of the cold. I laid down my book and let Pep in. He made straight for the stove and his rug.
“Mercy!” Cousin Agatha cried. “Do you let that—that animal in the kitchen?”
“Yes,” Ma replied. “He’s not a young dog any longer. He isn’t any bother, and he does enjoy the heat.”
“Humph.” Agatha pulled her skirts around her. “I wouldn’t allow any livestock in my kitchen. Can’t think what earthly good a dog can be.” She glared at Pep, who responded with a thump of his tail and a sigh of contentment.
“Dumb creature,” Cousin Agatha muttered.
“Pep isn’t dumb, Cousin Agatha,” I said. “He’s really the smartest dog I know.”
“I was not referring to his intellect or lack of it,” she told me, “‘Dumb’ indicates an inability to speak. You will have to concede that he is unable to carry on a conversation.”
I was ready to dispute that, too, but Ma shook her head. Cousin Agatha continued to give Pep disparaging glances.
“Didn’t you ever have any pets at your house, Cousin Agatha?” I asked.
“Pets? I should say not! Where in the Bible does it say that God made animals for man’s playthings? They’re meant to earn their keep, not sprawl out around the house absorbing heat.”
“Oh, Pep works,” I assured her. “He’s been taking the cows out and bringing them back for years now.”
Cousin Agatha was not impressed. She sat back in the rocker and eyed Pep with disfavor. “The one thing I can’t abide, next to a lazy child, is a useless animal—and in the house!”
I began to look nervously at Ma, thinking she might send Pep to the barn to keep the peace. But she went on about her work, serenely ignoring Cousin Agatha’s hints. I was glad when it was time to set the table.
After we had eaten, Pa took the Bible down from the cupboard and read our Thanksgiving chapter, Psalm 100. Then he prayed, thanking the Lord for Cousin Agatha and asking the Lord’s blessing on her just as he did on the rest of us. When he had finished, Cousin Agatha spoke up.
“I believe that I will stay here until Christmas, James. Then, if I find it to my liking, I could sell the house in the city and continue on with you. Maryanne could use some help in teaching these children how to be useful.”
In the stunned silence that followed, I looked at Pa and Ma to see how this news had affected them. Ma looked pale. Before Pa could open his mouth to answer, Cousin Agatha rose from the table. “I’ll just go to my room for a bit of rest,” she said. “We’ll discuss this later.”
When she had left, we gazed at each other helplessly.
“Is there anything in the Bible that tells you what to do now?” I asked Pa.
“Well, it says if we don’t love our brother whom we can see, how can we love God whom we can’t see? I think that probably applies to cousins as well.”
“I’d love her better if I couldn’t see her.” Reuben declared. “We don’t have to let her stay, do we, Pa?”
“No, we don’t have to,” Pa replied. “We could ask her to leave tomorrow as planned. But I’m not sure that would be right. What do you think, Ma?”
“I wouldn’t want to live alone in the city,” Ma said slowly. “I can see that she would prefer the company of a family. I suppose we should ask her to stay until Christmas.”
“I think she already asked herself,” Roy ventured. “But she did say if she found things to her liking. . . .”
We all looked at Roy. Pa said, “You’re not planning something that wouldn’t be to her liking, are you?”
“Oh, no, sir!” Roy quickly answered. “Not me.”
Pa signed. “I’m not sure I’d blame you. She’s not an easy person to live with. We’ll all have to be especially patient with her.”
There wasn’t much Thanksgiving atmosphere in the kitchen as we did the dishes.
“How can we possibly stand it for another whole month?” I moaned.
“The Lord only sends us one day at a time,” Ma informed me. “Don’t worry about more than that. When the other days arrive, you’ll probably find out you worried about all the wrong things.”
As soon as the work was finished, I put on my coat and walked over to Sarah Jane’s.
“What will you do if she stays on after Christmas?” she asked.
“I’ll just die.”
“I thought you were going to be a long-living O’Dell.”
“I changed my mind,” I retorted. “What would you do if you were in my place?”
“I’d probably make her life miserable so she’d want to leave.”
“You know I couldn’t get away with that. Pa believes that Christian love is the best solution.”
“All right, then,” Sarah Jane said with a shrug. “Love her to death.”
As though to fulfill Pa’s prediction, snow began to fall heavily that night. By morning we were snowed in.
“Snowed in?” Cousin Agatha repeated. “You mean unable to leave the house at all?”
“That’s right,” Pa replied. “This one is coming straight down from Canada.”
Cousin Agatha looked troubled. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.”
“We’ll be all right,” Ma reassured her. “We have plenty of wood and all the food we need.”
But Cousin Agatha was not to be reassured. I watched her stare into the fire and twist her handkerchief around her fingers. Why, she’s frightened! I thought. This old lady had been directing things all her life, and here was something she couldn’t control. Suddenly I felt sorry for her.
“Cousin Agatha,” I said, “we have fun when we’re snowed in. We play games and pop corn and tell stories. You’ll enjoy it. I know you will!”
I ran over and put my arms around her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. She looked at me in surprise.
“That’s the first time anyone has hugged me since I can remember,” she said. “Do you really like me, Mabel?”
Right then I knew that I did like Cousin Agatha a whole lot. Behind her stern front was another person who needed to be loved and wanted.
“Oh, yes, Cousin Agatha,” I replied. “I really do. You’ll see what a good time we’ll have together.”
The smile that lighted her face was bright enough to chase away any gloom that had settled over the kitchen. And deep down inside, I felt real good.
Cousin Agatha
My best friend, Sarah Jane, and I were walking home from school on a cold November afternoon.
“Do you realize, Mabel, that 1886 is almost over? Another year of nothing important ever happening is nearly gone.”
“Well, we still have a good bit of life ahead of us,” I replied.
“You don’t know that,” Sarah Jane said darkly, “We’re thirteen and a half. We may already have lived nearly a third of our allotted time.”
“The O’Dells live to be awfully old,” I told her. “So, unless I get run down by a horse and buggy, I’ll probably be around awhile.”
We walked along in silence. Then suddenly Sarah Jane pulled me to the side of the road.
“Here’s the horse and buggy that could keep you from becoming an old lady,” she kidded. We turned to see my pa coming down the road.
“Want to ride the rest of the way, girls?” he called. We clambered into the buggy, and Pa clucked to Nellie.
“What did you get in town?” I asked.
“Some things for the farm and a letter for your ma.” Around the next bend, Pa slowed Nellie to a halt. “Your stop, Sarah Jane.”
“Thanks, Mr. O’Dell.” Sarah Jane jumped down. “I’ll be over to study later, Mabel. ‘Bye.”
“Who’s the letter from?” I asked Pa.
“Can’t tell from the handwriting. We’ll have to wait for Ma to tell us.”
When Ma opened the letter, she looked puzzled. “This is from your cousin Agatha,” she said to Pa. “Why didn’t she address it to you, too?”
“If I know Aggie, she wants something,” Pa declared. “And she figured you’d be more likely to listen to her sad story.”
Ma read the letter and shook her head at Pa. “She just wants to come for Thanksgiving. Now aren’t you ashamed of talking that way?”
“No, I’m not. That’s what Aggie says she wants. You can be sure there’s more there than meets the eye. Are you going to tell her to come ahead?”
“Why, of course!” Ma exclaimed. “If I were a widowed lady up in years, I’d want to be with family on Thanksgiving. Why shouldn’t I tell her to come?”
Pa took his hat from the peg by the door and started for the barn, where my older brothers were already at work. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he remarked as he left.
“What did Pa warn you about?” I asked as soon as the door closed behind him. “What does Cousin Agatha want?”
“I don’t believe Pa was talking to you,” Ma replied. “You heard me say that she wants to come for Thanksgiving.”
“Yes, but Pa said—”
“That’s enough, Mabel. We won’t discuss it further.”
I watched silently as Ma sat down at the kitchen table and answered Cousin Agatha’s letter.
Snow began to fall two days before the holiday, and Pa had to hitch up the sleigh to go into town and meet the train.
“It will be just our misfortune to have a real blizzard and be snowed in with that woman for a week,” he grumbled.
“Having Aggie here a few days won’t hurt you,” Ma said. “The way you carry on, you’d think she was coming to stay forever!”
Pa’s look said he considered that a distinct possibility. As I helped Ma with the pies, I questioned her about Cousin Agatha.
“Has she been here before? I can’t remember seeing her.”
“I guess you were pretty small last time Agatha visited,” Ma replied. “I expect she gets lonely in that big house in the city.”
“What do you suppose she wants besides dinner?” I ventured.
“Friendly company,” Ma snapped. “And we’re going to give it to her.”
When the pies were in the oven, I hung around the window, watching for the sleigh. It was nearly dark when I heard the bells on Nellie’s harness ring out across the snow.
“They’re coming, Ma,” I called, and Ma hurried to the door with the lamp held high over her head. The boys and I crowded behind her. Pa jumped down from the sleigh and turned to help Cousin Agatha.
“I don’t need any assistance from you, James,” a firm voice spoke. “I’m perfectly capable of leaving any conveyance under my own power.”
“She talks like a book!” Roy whispered, and Reuben poked him. I watched in awe as a tall, unbending figure sailed into the kitchen.
“Well, Maryanne,” she said, “it’s good to see you.” She removed her big hat, jabbed a long hat pin into it, and handed the hat to me. “You must be Mabel.”
I nodded wordlessly.
“What’s the matter? Can’t you speak?” she boomed.
“Yes, ma’am,” I gulped nervously.
“Then don’t stand there bobbing your head like a monkey on a stick. People will think you have no sense. You can put that hat in my room.”
I stared openmouthed at this unusual person until a gentle push from Ma sent me in the direction of the guest room.
After dinner and prayers, Pa rose with the intention of going to the barn.
“James!” Cousin Agatha’s voice stopped him. “Surely you aren’t going to do the chores with these two great hulking fellows sitting here, are you?”
The two great hulking fellows leaped for the door with a speed I didn’t know they had.
“I should guess so,” Cousin Agatha exclaimed with satisfaction. “If there’s anything I can’t abide, it’s a lazy child.”
As she spoke, Cousin Agatha pulled Ma’s rocker to the stove and lowered herself into it. “This chair would be more comfortable if there were something to put my feet on,” she said, “but I suppose one can’t expect the amenities in a place like this.”
I looked at Ma for some clue as to what “amenities” might be. This was not a word we had encountered in our speller.
“Run into the parlor and get the footstool, Mabel,” Ma directed.
When Cousin Agatha was settled with her hands in her lap and her feet off the cold floor, I started the dishes.
“Maryanne, don’t you think Mabel’s dress is a mite too short?”
Startled, I looked down at my dress.
“No,” Ma’s calm voice replied. “She’s only thirteen, you know. I don’t want her to be grown up too soon.”
“There is such a thing as modesty, you know.” Cousin Agatha sniffed.
Pa and the boys returned just then, so Ma didn’t answer. I steered an uneasy path around Cousin Agatha all evening. For the first time I could remember, I was glad when bedtime came.
The next day was Thanksgiving, and the house was filled with the aroma of good things to eat. From her rocker, Cousin Agatha offered suggestions as Ma scurried about the kitchen.
“Isn’t it time to baste the turkey, Maryanne? I don’t care for dry fowl.”
“I see the boys running around out there with that mangy dog as though they had nothing to do. Shouldn’t they be chopping wood or something?”
“I should think Mabel could be helping you instead of reading a book. If there’s one thing I can’t abide . . . “
“Mabel will set the table when it’s time,” Ma put in. “Maybe you’d like to peel some potatoes?”
The horrified look on Cousin Agatha’s face said she wouldn’t consider it, so Ma withdrew her offer.
A bump on the door indicated that the “mangy dog” was tired of the cold. I laid down my book and let Pep in. He made straight for the stove and his rug.
“Mercy!” Cousin Agatha cried. “Do you let that—that animal in the kitchen?”
“Yes,” Ma replied. “He’s not a young dog any longer. He isn’t any bother, and he does enjoy the heat.”
“Humph.” Agatha pulled her skirts around her. “I wouldn’t allow any livestock in my kitchen. Can’t think what earthly good a dog can be.” She glared at Pep, who responded with a thump of his tail and a sigh of contentment.
“Dumb creature,” Cousin Agatha muttered.
“Pep isn’t dumb, Cousin Agatha,” I said. “He’s really the smartest dog I know.”
“I was not referring to his intellect or lack of it,” she told me, “‘Dumb’ indicates an inability to speak. You will have to concede that he is unable to carry on a conversation.”
I was ready to dispute that, too, but Ma shook her head. Cousin Agatha continued to give Pep disparaging glances.
“Didn’t you ever have any pets at your house, Cousin Agatha?” I asked.
“Pets? I should say not! Where in the Bible does it say that God made animals for man’s playthings? They’re meant to earn their keep, not sprawl out around the house absorbing heat.”
“Oh, Pep works,” I assured her. “He’s been taking the cows out and bringing them back for years now.”
Cousin Agatha was not impressed. She sat back in the rocker and eyed Pep with disfavor. “The one thing I can’t abide, next to a lazy child, is a useless animal—and in the house!”
I began to look nervously at Ma, thinking she might send Pep to the barn to keep the peace. But she went on about her work, serenely ignoring Cousin Agatha’s hints. I was glad when it was time to set the table.
After we had eaten, Pa took the Bible down from the cupboard and read our Thanksgiving chapter, Psalm 100. Then he prayed, thanking the Lord for Cousin Agatha and asking the Lord’s blessing on her just as he did on the rest of us. When he had finished, Cousin Agatha spoke up.
“I believe that I will stay here until Christmas, James. Then, if I find it to my liking, I could sell the house in the city and continue on with you. Maryanne could use some help in teaching these children how to be useful.”
In the stunned silence that followed, I looked at Pa and Ma to see how this news had affected them. Ma looked pale. Before Pa could open his mouth to answer, Cousin Agatha rose from the table. “I’ll just go to my room for a bit of rest,” she said. “We’ll discuss this later.”
When she had left, we gazed at each other helplessly.
“Is there anything in the Bible that tells you what to do now?” I asked Pa.
“Well, it says if we don’t love our brother whom we can see, how can we love God whom we can’t see? I think that probably applies to cousins as well.”
“I’d love her better if I couldn’t see her.” Reuben declared. “We don’t have to let her stay, do we, Pa?”
“No, we don’t have to,” Pa replied. “We could ask her to leave tomorrow as planned. But I’m not sure that would be right. What do you think, Ma?”
“I wouldn’t want to live alone in the city,” Ma said slowly. “I can see that she would prefer the company of a family. I suppose we should ask her to stay until Christmas.”
“I think she already asked herself,” Roy ventured. “But she did say if she found things to her liking. . . .”
We all looked at Roy. Pa said, “You’re not planning something that wouldn’t be to her liking, are you?”
“Oh, no, sir!” Roy quickly answered. “Not me.”
Pa signed. “I’m not sure I’d blame you. She’s not an easy person to live with. We’ll all have to be especially patient with her.”
There wasn’t much Thanksgiving atmosphere in the kitchen as we did the dishes.
“How can we possibly stand it for another whole month?” I moaned.
“The Lord only sends us one day at a time,” Ma informed me. “Don’t worry about more than that. When the other days arrive, you’ll probably find out you worried about all the wrong things.”
As soon as the work was finished, I put on my coat and walked over to Sarah Jane’s.
“What will you do if she stays on after Christmas?” she asked.
“I’ll just die.”
“I thought you were going to be a long-living O’Dell.”
“I changed my mind,” I retorted. “What would you do if you were in my place?”
“I’d probably make her life miserable so she’d want to leave.”
“You know I couldn’t get away with that. Pa believes that Christian love is the best solution.”
“All right, then,” Sarah Jane said with a shrug. “Love her to death.”
As though to fulfill Pa’s prediction, snow began to fall heavily that night. By morning we were snowed in.
“Snowed in?” Cousin Agatha repeated. “You mean unable to leave the house at all?”
“That’s right,” Pa replied. “This one is coming straight down from Canada.”
Cousin Agatha looked troubled. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.”
“We’ll be all right,” Ma reassured her. “We have plenty of wood and all the food we need.”
But Cousin Agatha was not to be reassured. I watched her stare into the fire and twist her handkerchief around her fingers. Why, she’s frightened! I thought. This old lady had been directing things all her life, and here was something she couldn’t control. Suddenly I felt sorry for her.
“Cousin Agatha,” I said, “we have fun when we’re snowed in. We play games and pop corn and tell stories. You’ll enjoy it. I know you will!”
I ran over and put my arms around her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. She looked at me in surprise.
“That’s the first time anyone has hugged me since I can remember,” she said. “Do you really like me, Mabel?”
Right then I knew that I did like Cousin Agatha a whole lot. Behind her stern front was another person who needed to be loved and wanted.
“Oh, yes, Cousin Agatha,” I replied. “I really do. You’ll see what a good time we’ll have together.”
The smile that lighted her face was bright enough to chase away any gloom that had settled over the kitchen. And deep down inside, I felt real good.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
The Harvest of Grace by Cindy Woodsmall
Book Three in Cindy's Ada's House series focuses on Sylvia Fisher and Aaron Blank but there are updates and continuations of the stories of the folks in the earlier books. So this is a series best read in order - and my review will include spoilers of the earlier books. I'll try not to give away anything from this current book.
Although Sylvia Fisher recognizes that most Old Order Amish women her age spend their hours managing a household and raising babies, she has just one focus—tending and nurturing the herd on her family’s dairy farm. But when a dangerous connection with an old beau forces her to move far from home, she decides to concentrate on a new start and pour her energy into reviving another family’s debt-ridden farm.
After months in rehab, Aaron Blank returns home to sell his Daed’s failing farm and move his parents into an easier lifestyle. Two things stand in his way: the father who stubbornly refuses to recognize that Aaron has changed and the determined new farmhand his parents love like a daughter. Her influence on Aaron’s parents could ruin his plans to escape the burdens of farming and build a new life.
Can Aaron and Sylvia find common ground? Or will their unflinching efforts toward opposite goals blur the bigger picture— a path to forgiveness, glimpses of grace, and the promise of love.
I didn't read the first book of this series but I did read the second. I found in the second and the third that you really don't have to have read the previous one to understand what's going on. There are enough details of the back story that you can keep the people straight and remember who went through what.
Aaron and Sylvia are front and center in this book but we also get the update on what's going on with Ephraim, Cara and Lori - the struggles as Cara prepares to join the Amish faith, including a face from her past that completely throws her for a loop - and what the Bishop requires she do with this person before joining the faith.
We also see Gray and Lena and follow Lena's journey to heal from the attack in the last book and their efforts to spend time together without causing pain for Michael and Dora as they grieve the loss of their daughter (Gray's deceased wife).
Israel and Ada and Deborah and Jonathan also move forward with their stories.
Well written, seamless continuation of the stories and evolving characters make this series a joy to read.
Highly recommended.
Jody
Many thanks to Waterbrook/Multnomah for my complimentary copy of this book.
Friday, August 12, 2011
The One Who Waits for Me by Lori Copeland
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the book:
Harvest House Publishers (August 1, 2011)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Lori Copeland is the author of more than 90 titles, both historical and contemporary fiction. With more than 3 million copies of her books in print, she has developed a loyal following among her rapidly growing fans in the inspirational market. She has been honored with the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award, The Holt Medallion, and Walden Books' Best Seller award. In 2000, Lori was inducted into the Missouri Writers Hall of Fame. She lives in the beautiful Ozarks with her husband, Lance, and their three children and five grandchildren.
Visit the author's website.
SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:
This new series from bestselling author Lori Copeland, set in North Carolina three months after the Civil War ends, illuminates the gift of hope even in chaos, as the lives of six engaging characters intersect and unfold with the possibility of faith, love, and God’s promise of a future.
Product Details:
List Price: $13.99
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers (August 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0736930183
ISBN-13: 978-0736930185
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Joanie?”
Beth’s sister stirred, coughing.
Beth gently shook Joanie’s shoulder again, and the young woman opened her eyes, confusion shining in their depths.
“Pa?”
“He passed a few minutes ago. Trella will be waiting for us.”
Joanie lifted her wrist to her mouth and smothered sudden sobbing. “I’m scared, Beth.”
“So am I. Dress quickly.”
The young woman slid out of bed, her bare feet touching the dirt-packed floor. Outside, the familiar sound of pond frogs nearly drowned out soft movements, though there was no need to be silent any more. Ma had preceded Pa in death two days ago. Beth and Joanie had been waiting, praying for the hour of Pa’s death to come swiftly. Together, they lifted their father’s silent form and gently carried him out the front door. He was a slight man, easy to carry. Beth’s heart broke as they took him to the shallow grave they had dug the day before. Ma’s fever had taken her swiftly. Pa had held on for as long as he could. Beth could still hear his voice in her ear: “Take care of your sister, little Beth.” He didn’t have to remind her that there was no protection at all now to save either of them from Uncle Walt and his son, Bear. Beth had known all of her life that one day she and Joanie would have to escape this place—a place of misery.
It was her father’s stubborn act that started the situation Beth and Joanie were immersed in. Pa had hid the plantation deed from his brother and refused to tell him where it was. Their land had belonged to a Jornigan for two hundred years, but Walt claimed that because he was the older brother and allowed Pa to live on his land the deed belonged to him. Pa was a proud man and had no respect for his brother, though his family depended on Walt for a roof over their heads and food on their table. For meager wages they worked Walt’s fields, picked his cotton, and suffered his tyranny along with the other workers. Pa took the location of the hidden deed to his grave—almost. Walt probably figured Beth knew where it was because Pa always favored her. And she did, but she would die before she shared the location with her vile uncle.
By the light of the waning moon the women made short work of placing the corpse in the grave and then filling the hole with dirt. Finished, they stood back and Joanie bowed her head in prayer. “Dear Father, thank You for taking Ma and Pa away from this world. I know they’re with You now, and I promise we won’t cry.” Hot tears streaming down both women’s cheeks belied her words.
Returning to the shanty, Joanie removed her nightshirt and put on boy’s clothes. Dressed in similar denim trousers and a dark shirt, Beth turned and picked up the oil lamp and poured the liquid carefully around the one-room shanty. Yesterday she had packed Ma’s best dishes and quilts and dragged them to the root cellar. It was useless effort. She would never be back here, but she couldn’t bear the thought of fire consuming Ma’s few pretty things. She glanced over her shoulder when the stench of fuel heightened Joanie’s cough. The struggle to breathe had been a constant companion since her younger sister’s birth.
Many nights Beth lay tense and fearful, certain that come light Joanie would be gone. Now that Ma and Pa were dead, Joanie was the one thing left on this earth that held meaning for Beth. She put down the lamp on the table. Walking over to Joanie, she buttoned the last button on her sister’s shirt and tugged her hat brim lower.
“Do you have everything?”
“Yes.”
“Then go outside and wait.”
Nodding, Joanie paused briefly beside the bed where Pa’s tall frame had been earlier. She hesitantly reached out and touched the empty spot. “May you rest in peace, Pa.”
Moonlight shone through the one glass pane facing the south. Beth shook her head. “He was a good man. It’s hard to believe Uncle Walt had the same mother and father.”
Joanie’s breath caught. “Pa was so good and Walt is so…evil.”
“If it were up to me, he would be lying in that grave outside the window, not Pa.”
Beth tried to recall one single time in her life when Walt Jornigan had ever shown an ounce of mercy to anyone. Certainly not to his wife when she was alive. Certainly not to Beth or Joanie. If Joanie was right and there was a God, what would Walt say when he faced Him? She shook the thought aside. She had no compassion for the man or reverence for the God her sister believed in and worshipped.
“We have to go now, Joanie.”
“Yes.” She picked up her Bible from the little table beside the rocking chair and then followed Beth outside the shanty, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Pausing, Joanie bent and succumbed to a coughing spasm. Beth helplessly waited, hoping her sister could make the anticipated trip through the cotton fields. The women had planned for days now to escape if Ma and Pa both passed.
Beth asked gently, “Can you do this?”
Joanie held up a restraining hand. “Just need…a minute.”
Beth wasn’t certain that they could wait long; time was short. Dawn would be breaking soon, and then Walt would discover that Pa had died and the sisters were missing. But they had to leave. Joanie’s asthma was getting worse. Each gasping breath left her drained and hopeless, and Walt refused to let her see a doctor.
When Joanie had mentioned the notice in a discarded Savannah newspaper advertising a piece of land, Beth knew she had to buy the property and provide a home for Joanie. Pa had allowed her and Joanie to keep the wage Uncle Walt paid monthly. Over the years they had saved enough to survive, and the owner was practically giving the small acreage away. They wouldn’t be able to build a permanent structure on their land until she found work, but she and Joanie would own their own place where no one could control them. Beth planned to eventually buy a cow and a few setting hens. At first they could live in a tent—Beth’s eyes roamed the small shanty. It would be better than how they lived now.
Joanie’s spasm passed and she glanced up. “Okay. You…can do it now.”
Beth struck a match.
She glanced at Joanie. The young woman nodded and clutched her Bible to her chest. Beth had found it in one of the cotton picker’s beds after he had moved on and given it to Joanie. Her sister had kept the Bible hidden from sight for fear that Walt would spot it on one of his weekly visits. Beth had known, as Joanie had, that if their uncle had found it he’d have had extra reason to hand out his daily lashing. Joanie kept the deed to their new land between its pages.
After pitching the lighted match into the cabin, Beth quickly closed the heavy door. Stepping to the window, she watched the puddles of kerosene ignite one by one. In just minutes flames were licking the walls and gobbling up the dry tinder. A peculiar sense of relief came over her when she saw tendrils of fire racing through the room, latching onto the front curtain and encompassing the bed.
“Don’t watch.” Joanie slipped her hand into Beth’s. “We have to hurry before Uncle Walt spots the flames.”
Hand in hand, the sisters stepped off the porch, and Beth turned to the mounds of fresh dirt heaped not far from the shanty. Pausing before the fresh graves, she whispered. “I love you both. Rest in peace.”
Joanie had her own goodbyes for their mother. “We don’t want to leave you and Pa here alone, but I know you understand—”
As the flames licked higher, Beth said, “We have to go, Joanie. Don’t look back.”
“I won’t.” Her small hand quivered inside Beth’s. “God has something better for us.”
Beth didn’t answer. She didn’t know whether Ma and Pa were in a good place or not. She didn’t know anything about such things. She just knew they had to run.
The two women dressed in men’s clothing struck off across the cotton fields carrying everything they owned in a small bag. It wasn’t much. A dress for each, clean underclothes, and their nightshirts. Beth had a hairbrush one of the pickers had left behind. She’d kept the treasure well hidden so Walt wouldn’t see it. He’d have taken it from her. He didn’t hold with primping—said combing tangles from one’s hair was a vain act. Finger-picking river-washed hair was all a woman needed.
Fire now raced inside the cabin. By the time Uncle Walt noticed the smoke from the plantation house across the fields, the two sisters would be long gone. No longer would they be under the tyrannical thumb of Walt or Bear Jornigan.
Freedom.
Beth sniffed the night air, thinking she could smell the precious state. Never again would she or Joanie answer to any man. She would run hard and far and find help for Joanie so that she could finally breathe free. In her pocket she fingered the remaining bills she’d taken from the fruit jar in the cabinet. It was all the ready cash Pa and Ma had. They wouldn’t be needing money where they were.
Suddenly there was a sound of a large explosion. Heavy black smoke blanketed the night air. Then another blast.
Kerosene! She’d forgotten the small barrel sitting just outside the back porch.
It was the last sound Beth heard.
I absolutely loved this book and highly recommend it.
Jody
Friday, August 5, 2011
Homeward by Melody Carlson
From bestselling author Melody Carlson comes this award-winning story of three generations of Lancaster women. For twenty years Meg Lancaster has avoided Briar Hedge, the Lancaster family estate. Now she has been drawn back to her grandmother's home to uncover secrets that have been hidden for decades and to try to regain the family she long ago abandoned.
We meet Meg Lancaster as she is driving home to her family estate in hopes of distancing herself from a broken engagement. But since she hasn't been home for 20 years, it's possible she's just running towards more heartache.
Will she be able to please the grandmother who has always disapproved? Will she be able to forgive the mother who was never really a mom? There are even doubts of how her sister, the only one she has kept in slight contact with, will react to seeing her.
And then there is the cousin who is trying to sell off her grandfather's cranberry bogs. Can she save the bogs or any of the relationships?
A wonderful, touching story of regrets, hopes and dreams - and finding out that what you really want might not be what you have been chasing most of your life.
Highly recommended.
Jody
My Kindle download was provided by Glass Road Public Relations for my honest review.
Restless in Carolina by Tamara Leigh
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the book:
Multnomah Books (July 19, 2011)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Tamara Leigh began her writing career in 1994 and is the best-selling author of fourteen novels, including Splitting Harriet (ACFW Book of the Year winner and RITA Award finalist), Faking Grace (RITA Award Finalist), and Leaving Carolina. A former speech and language pathologist, Tamara enjoys time with her family, faux painting, and reading. She lives with her husband and sons in Tennessee.Visit the author's website.
SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Tree-huggin’, animal-lovin’ Bridget Pickwick-Buchanan is on a mission. Well, two. First she has to come to terms with being a widow at thirty-three. After all, it’s been four years and even her five-year-old niece and nephew think it’s time she shed her widow’s weeds. Second, she needs to find a buyer for her family’s estate—a Biltmore-inspired mansion surrounded by hundreds of acres of unspoiled forestland. With family obligations forcing the sale, Bridget is determined to find an eco-friendly developer to buy the land, someone who won’t turn it into single-family homes or a cheesy theme park.Enter J. C. Dirk, a high-energy developer from Atlanta whose green property developments have earned him national acclaim. When he doesn’t return her calls, Bridget decides a personal visit is in order. Unfortunately, J. C. Dirk is neither amused nor interested when she interrupts his meeting—until she mentions her family name. In short order, he finds himself in North Carolina, and Bridget has her white knight—in more ways than one. But there are things Bridget doesn’t know about J. C., and it could mean the end of everything she’s worked for…and break her heart.
Product Details:
List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Multnomah Books (July 19, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1601421680
ISBN-13: 978-1601421685
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Deep breath. “…and they lived…”
I can do this. It’s not as if I didn’t sense it coming. After all, I can smell an H.E.A. (Happily Ever After) a mile away—or, in this case, twenty-four pages glued between cardboard covers that feature the requisite princess surrounded by cute woodland creatures. And there are the words, right where I knew the cliché of an author would slap them, on the last page in the same font as those preceding them. Deceptively nondescript. Recklessly hopeful. Heartbreakingly false.
“Aunt Bridge,” Birdie chirps, “finish it.”
I look up from the once-upon-a-time crisp page that has been softened, creased, and stained by the obsessive readings in which hermother indulges her.
Eyes wide, cheeks flushed, my niece nods. “Say the magic words.” Magic?
More nodding, and is she quivering? Oh no, I refuse to be a party to this. I smile big, say, “The end,” and close the book. “So, how about another piece of weddin’ cake?”
“No!” She jumps off the footstool she earlier dubbed her “princess throne,” snatches the book from my hand, and opens it to the back. “Wight here!”
I almost correct her initial r-turned-w but according tomy sister, it’s developmental and the sound is coming in fine on its own, just as her other r’s did.
Birdie jabs the H, E, and A. “It’s not the end until you say the magic words.”
And I thought this the lesser of two evils—entertaining my niece and nephew as opposed to standing around at the reception as the bride and groom are toasted by all the happy couples, among them, cousin Piper, soon to be wed to my friend Axel, and cousin Maggie, maybe soon to be engaged to her sculptor man, what’s-his-name.
“Yeah,” Birdie’s twin,Miles, calls from where he’s once more hanging upside down on the rolling ladder I’ve pulled him off twice. “You gotta say the magic words.”
Outrageous! Even my dirt-between-the-toes, scab-ridden, snot-on-the-sleeve nephew is buying into the fantasy.
I spring from the armchair, cross the library, and unhook his ankles from the rung. “You keep doin’ that and you’ll bust your head wide open.” I set him on his feet. “And your mama will—
”No, Bonnie won’t.
“Well, she’ll be tempted to give you a whoopin’.”
Face bright with upside-down color, he glowers.
I’d glower back if I weren’t so grateful for the distraction he provided. “All right, then.” I slap at the ridiculously stiff skirt of the dress Maggie loaned me for my brother’s wedding. “Let’s rejoin the party—”
“You don’t wanna say it.”Miles sets his little legs wide apart. “Do ya?” So much for my distraction.
“You don’t like Birdie’s stories ’cause they have happy endings. And you don’t.”
I clench my toes in the painfully snug high heels on loan from Piper.
“Yep.”Miles punches his fists to his hips. “Even Mama says so.”
My own sister? I shake my head, causing the blond dreads Maggie pulled away from my face with a headband to sweep my back. “That’s not true.”
“Then say it wight now!” Birdie demands.
I peer over my shoulder at where she stands like an angry tin soldier, an arm outthrust, the book extended.
“Admit it,”Miles singsongs.
I snap around and catch my breath at the superior, knowing look on his five-year-old face. He’s his father’s son, all right, a miniature Professor Claude de Feuilles, child development expert.
“You’re not happy.” The professor in training, who looks anything but with his spiked hair, nods.
I know better than to bristle with two cranky, nap-deprived children, but that’s what I’m doing. Feeling as if I’m watching myself from the other side of the room, I cross my arms over my chest. “I’ll admit no such thing.”
“That’s ’cause you’re afraid. Mama said so.” Miles peers past me.
“Didn’t she, Birdie?”
Why is Bonnie discussing my personal life with her barely-out-of-diapers kids?
“Uh-huh. She said so.”
Miles’s smile is smug. “On the drive here, Mama told Daddy this day would be hard on you. That you wouldn’t be happy for Uncle Bart ’cause you’re not happy.”
Not true! Not that I’m thrilled with our brother’s choice of bride, but…come on! Trinity Templeton? Nice enough, but she isn’t operating on a full charge, which wouldn’t be so bad if Bart made up for the difference. Far from it, his past history with illegal stimulants having stripped him of a few billion brain cells.
“She said your heart is”—Miles scrunches his nose, as if assailed by a terrible odor—“constipated.”
What?!
“That you need an M&M, and I don’t think she meant the chocolate kind you eat. Probably one of those—”
“I am not constipated.” Pull back. Nice and easy. I try to heed my inner voice but find myself leaning down and saying, “I’m realistic.”
Birdie stomps the hardwood floor. “Say the magic words!”
“Nope.”Miles shakes his head. “Constipated.”
I shift my cramped jaw. “Re-al-is-tic.”
“Con-sti-pa-ted.”
Pull back, I tell you! He’s five years old. “Just because I don’t believe in fooling a naive little girl into thinkin’ a prince is waiting for her at the other end of childhood and will save her from a fate worse than death and take her to his castle and they’ll live…” I flap a hand. “…you know, doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me.”
Isn’t there? “It means I know better. There may be a prince, and he may have a castle, and they may be happy, but don’t count on it lasting. Oh no. He’ll get bored or caught up in work or start cheatin’—you know, decide to put that glass slipper on some other damsel’s foot or kiss another sleeping beauty—or he’ll just up and die like Easton—” No,
nothing at all wrong with you, Bridget Pickwick Buchanan, whose ugly widow’s weeds are showing.
“See!”Miles wags a finger.
Unfortunately, I do. And as I straighten, I hear sniffles.
“Now you done it!” Miles hustles past me. “Got Birdie upset.”
Sure enough, she’s staring at me with flooded eyes. “The prince dies? He dies and leaves the princess all alone?”The book falls from her hand, its meeting with the floor echoing around the library. Then she squeaks out a sob.
“No!” I spring forward, grimacing at the raspy sound the skirt makes as I attempt to reach Birdie before Miles.
He gets there first and puts an arm around her. A meltable moment, my mother would call it. After she gave me a dressing down. And I deserve one. My niece may be on the spoiled side and she may work my nerves, but I love her—even like her when that sweet streak of hers comes through. “It’s okay, Birdie,” Miles soothes. “The prince doesn’t die.”
Yes, he does, but what possessed me to say so? And what if I’ve scarred her for life?
Miles pats her head onto his shoulder. “Aunt Bridge is just”—he gives me the evil eye—“constipated.”
“Yes, Birdie.” I drop to my knees. “I am. My heart, that is. Constipated. I’m so sorry.”
She turns her head and, upper lip shiny with the stuff running out of her nose, says in a hiccupy voice, “The prince doesn’t die?” I grab the book from the floor and turn to the back. “Look. There they are, riding off into the sunset—er, to his castle. Happy. See, it says so.” I tap the H, E, and A.
She sniffs hard, causing that stuff to whoosh up her nose and my gag reflex to go on alert. “Weally happy, Aunt Bridge?”
“Yes.”
“Nope.” Barely-there eyebrows bunching, she lifts her head from Miles’s shoulder. “Not unless you say it.”
Oh dear Go—No, He and I are not talking. Well, He may be talking, but I’m not listening.
“I think you’d better.” Miles punctuates his advice with a sharp nod.
“Okay.” I look down at the page. “…and they lived…” It’s just a fairy tale—highly inflated, overstated fiction for tykes. “…they lived happily…ever…after.”
Birdie blinks in slow motion. “Happily…ever…after. That’s a nice way to say it, like you wanna hold on to it for always.”
Or unstick it from the roof of your mouth. “The end.” I close the book, and it’s all I can do not to toss it over my shoulder. “Here you go.”
She clasps it to her chest. “Happily…ever…after.”
Peachy. But I’ll take her dreamy murmuring over tears any day. Goodness, I can’t believe I made her cry. I stand and pat the skirt back down into its stand-alone shape. “More cake?”
“Yay!” Miles charges past me.
Next time— No, there won’t be a next time. I’m done with Little Golden Books.
I can do this. It’s not as if I didn’t sense it coming. After all, I can smell an H.E.A. (Happily Ever After) a mile away—or, in this case, twenty-four pages glued between cardboard covers that feature the requisite princess surrounded by cute woodland creatures. And there are the words, right where I knew the cliché of an author would slap them, on the last page in the same font as those preceding them. Deceptively nondescript. Recklessly hopeful. Heartbreakingly false.
“Aunt Bridge,” Birdie chirps, “finish it.”
I look up from the once-upon-a-time crisp page that has been softened, creased, and stained by the obsessive readings in which hermother indulges her.
Eyes wide, cheeks flushed, my niece nods. “Say the magic words.” Magic?
More nodding, and is she quivering? Oh no, I refuse to be a party to this. I smile big, say, “The end,” and close the book. “So, how about another piece of weddin’ cake?”
“No!” She jumps off the footstool she earlier dubbed her “princess throne,” snatches the book from my hand, and opens it to the back. “Wight here!”
I almost correct her initial r-turned-w but according tomy sister, it’s developmental and the sound is coming in fine on its own, just as her other r’s did.
Birdie jabs the H, E, and A. “It’s not the end until you say the magic words.”
And I thought this the lesser of two evils—entertaining my niece and nephew as opposed to standing around at the reception as the bride and groom are toasted by all the happy couples, among them, cousin Piper, soon to be wed to my friend Axel, and cousin Maggie, maybe soon to be engaged to her sculptor man, what’s-his-name.
“Yeah,” Birdie’s twin,Miles, calls from where he’s once more hanging upside down on the rolling ladder I’ve pulled him off twice. “You gotta say the magic words.”
Outrageous! Even my dirt-between-the-toes, scab-ridden, snot-on-the-sleeve nephew is buying into the fantasy.
I spring from the armchair, cross the library, and unhook his ankles from the rung. “You keep doin’ that and you’ll bust your head wide open.” I set him on his feet. “And your mama will—
”No, Bonnie won’t.
“Well, she’ll be tempted to give you a whoopin’.”
Face bright with upside-down color, he glowers.
I’d glower back if I weren’t so grateful for the distraction he provided. “All right, then.” I slap at the ridiculously stiff skirt of the dress Maggie loaned me for my brother’s wedding. “Let’s rejoin the party—”
“You don’t wanna say it.”Miles sets his little legs wide apart. “Do ya?” So much for my distraction.
“You don’t like Birdie’s stories ’cause they have happy endings. And you don’t.”
I clench my toes in the painfully snug high heels on loan from Piper.
“Yep.”Miles punches his fists to his hips. “Even Mama says so.”
My own sister? I shake my head, causing the blond dreads Maggie pulled away from my face with a headband to sweep my back. “That’s not true.”
“Then say it wight now!” Birdie demands.
I peer over my shoulder at where she stands like an angry tin soldier, an arm outthrust, the book extended.
“Admit it,”Miles singsongs.
I snap around and catch my breath at the superior, knowing look on his five-year-old face. He’s his father’s son, all right, a miniature Professor Claude de Feuilles, child development expert.
“You’re not happy.” The professor in training, who looks anything but with his spiked hair, nods.
I know better than to bristle with two cranky, nap-deprived children, but that’s what I’m doing. Feeling as if I’m watching myself from the other side of the room, I cross my arms over my chest. “I’ll admit no such thing.”
“That’s ’cause you’re afraid. Mama said so.” Miles peers past me.
“Didn’t she, Birdie?”
Why is Bonnie discussing my personal life with her barely-out-of-diapers kids?
“Uh-huh. She said so.”
Miles’s smile is smug. “On the drive here, Mama told Daddy this day would be hard on you. That you wouldn’t be happy for Uncle Bart ’cause you’re not happy.”
Not true! Not that I’m thrilled with our brother’s choice of bride, but…come on! Trinity Templeton? Nice enough, but she isn’t operating on a full charge, which wouldn’t be so bad if Bart made up for the difference. Far from it, his past history with illegal stimulants having stripped him of a few billion brain cells.
“She said your heart is”—Miles scrunches his nose, as if assailed by a terrible odor—“constipated.”
What?!
“That you need an M&M, and I don’t think she meant the chocolate kind you eat. Probably one of those—”
“I am not constipated.” Pull back. Nice and easy. I try to heed my inner voice but find myself leaning down and saying, “I’m realistic.”
Birdie stomps the hardwood floor. “Say the magic words!”
“Nope.”Miles shakes his head. “Constipated.”
I shift my cramped jaw. “Re-al-is-tic.”
“Con-sti-pa-ted.”
Pull back, I tell you! He’s five years old. “Just because I don’t believe in fooling a naive little girl into thinkin’ a prince is waiting for her at the other end of childhood and will save her from a fate worse than death and take her to his castle and they’ll live…” I flap a hand. “…you know, doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me.”
Isn’t there? “It means I know better. There may be a prince, and he may have a castle, and they may be happy, but don’t count on it lasting. Oh no. He’ll get bored or caught up in work or start cheatin’—you know, decide to put that glass slipper on some other damsel’s foot or kiss another sleeping beauty—or he’ll just up and die like Easton—” No,
nothing at all wrong with you, Bridget Pickwick Buchanan, whose ugly widow’s weeds are showing.
“See!”Miles wags a finger.
Unfortunately, I do. And as I straighten, I hear sniffles.
“Now you done it!” Miles hustles past me. “Got Birdie upset.”
Sure enough, she’s staring at me with flooded eyes. “The prince dies? He dies and leaves the princess all alone?”The book falls from her hand, its meeting with the floor echoing around the library. Then she squeaks out a sob.
“No!” I spring forward, grimacing at the raspy sound the skirt makes as I attempt to reach Birdie before Miles.
He gets there first and puts an arm around her. A meltable moment, my mother would call it. After she gave me a dressing down. And I deserve one. My niece may be on the spoiled side and she may work my nerves, but I love her—even like her when that sweet streak of hers comes through. “It’s okay, Birdie,” Miles soothes. “The prince doesn’t die.”
Yes, he does, but what possessed me to say so? And what if I’ve scarred her for life?
Miles pats her head onto his shoulder. “Aunt Bridge is just”—he gives me the evil eye—“constipated.”
“Yes, Birdie.” I drop to my knees. “I am. My heart, that is. Constipated. I’m so sorry.”
She turns her head and, upper lip shiny with the stuff running out of her nose, says in a hiccupy voice, “The prince doesn’t die?” I grab the book from the floor and turn to the back. “Look. There they are, riding off into the sunset—er, to his castle. Happy. See, it says so.” I tap the H, E, and A.
She sniffs hard, causing that stuff to whoosh up her nose and my gag reflex to go on alert. “Weally happy, Aunt Bridge?”
“Yes.”
“Nope.” Barely-there eyebrows bunching, she lifts her head from Miles’s shoulder. “Not unless you say it.”
Oh dear Go—No, He and I are not talking. Well, He may be talking, but I’m not listening.
“I think you’d better.” Miles punctuates his advice with a sharp nod.
“Okay.” I look down at the page. “…and they lived…” It’s just a fairy tale—highly inflated, overstated fiction for tykes. “…they lived happily…ever…after.”
Birdie blinks in slow motion. “Happily…ever…after. That’s a nice way to say it, like you wanna hold on to it for always.”
Or unstick it from the roof of your mouth. “The end.” I close the book, and it’s all I can do not to toss it over my shoulder. “Here you go.”
She clasps it to her chest. “Happily…ever…after.”
Peachy. But I’ll take her dreamy murmuring over tears any day. Goodness, I can’t believe I made her cry. I stand and pat the skirt back down into its stand-alone shape. “More cake?”
“Yay!” Miles charges past me.
Next time— No, there won’t be a next time. I’m done with Little Golden Books.
Excerpted from Restless in Carolina by Tamara Leigh Copyright © 2011 by Tamara Leigh. Excerpted by permission of Multnomah Books, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is the third book in a series. I read the first but not the second. There are spoilers so if you want to read the series, you should read them in order.
I loved this book. It's good as a stand alone novel but to really understand the characters it's good to start from the beginning.
This is a great Southern small town story - and anyone who lived in small town (or wishes they had), whether in the South or not - will find themselves "at home".
Highly recommended.
Jody
Thursday, August 4, 2011
52 Ways to Wow Your Husband: How to Put a Smile on His Face by Pam Farrel
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the book:
52 Ways to Wow Your Husband: How to Put a Smile on His Face
Harvest House Publishers (August 1, 2011)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Pam Farrel and her husband, Bill, are cofounders and codirectors of Masterful Living, an organization that provides practical insights for personal relationships. The Farrels are also regular relationship columnists. As coauthors their books include Men Are Like Waffles—Women Are Like Spaghetti, The 10 Best Decisions Every Parent Can Make, and Red-Hot Monogamy. In addition Pam has written Fantastic After 40! and The 10 Best Decisions a Woman Can Make. The Farrels have been married more than 30 years and have three children and a daughter-in-law.Visit the author's website.
SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:
With her trademark humor and godly wisdom, bestselling author Pam Farrel inspires women to add the wow-factor to their marriages and lives through 52 clever ideas for dates, meals, getaways, and daily expressions of love. A spark of fun and refreshment for newlyweds, married with kids, or empty nesters.
Love Wise Intro from Bill & Pam Farrel on Vimeo.
Product Details:
List Price: $10.99
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers (August 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0736937803
ISBN-13: 978-0736937801
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
WOW 1
The Recharger Box
What a man finds romantic is a woman who will lower his stress! In Men Are Like Waffles—Women Are Like Spaghetti, I explain that men go to their favorite easy boxes to rest and recharge. God helped us women recognize these easy boxes in that most of them are shaped like boxes—the TV screen, the newspaper, the garage, the Xbox, the computer screen, the football field, the baseball diamond, the basketball court, the refrigerator, and the bed. The bed box (also known as the sex box) is a husband’s favorite box to go to when he is stressed out. This box or square is kind of like the center square on a bingo card, and a man can get to that box from every other square on his waffle.
Wow Assignment
Find out your man’s favorite easy box he goes to for recharging. Here are some ways to discover this vital information:
If given thirty minutes of dead time, what does he do?
If he were given a day off, where would he like to go?
What does he do now when stressed?
What does he watch on TV when relaxing? (Sports? Movies? Adventures? Fix-it shows?)
Kendra Smiley and her husband, John, wrote Do Your Kids a Favor…Love Your Spouse. John was wowed unexpectedly by Kendra with his all-time favorite box:
I’ve been a Green Bay Packers fan for years and transferred that enthusiasm to our three teenage sons. I never imagined I would actually be able to see a game at Lambeau Field because legend has it that the only way to get tickets is to inherit them when someone dies. But legends don’t stop Kendra! She called the ticket office, asking about the purchase of five tickets for the last home game of the season. After the laughter died down (I guess there was some truth to the legend), they referred her to an agency offering “Weekend Packages.” She knew we couldn’t afford all the extras of a package, and somehow she managed to convince the woman at that office to simply sell her five tickets. She gave me a gift that took her time, her effort, and a little bit of her charming persuasion. What a great model for our kids!
My man’s favorite easy box is: ________________________
Wow Wisdom
Pray and thank God for your husband. Often we women push, push, push our spouse to be more productive or work on our “honey-do” list even on his day off. If you keep pushing, he might begin to see you as a mother or a boss, not a wife and lover. A husband who gets pushed to do too many things he doesn’t enjoy will exhaust himself emotionally and grow distant from his wife. Think about how much better your life is when you are connected with your lover!
Instead of resenting your “waffleman” for needing to recharge, thank God he has a box to recharge in so he can maintain the energy to keep up with you! As Paul reminds us, “In everything give thanks” (1 Thessalonians 5:18 nasb).
Wow Date
Make him breakfast in bed and serve waffles. Give him a note for one free day off to do whatever he wants—to enjoy his favorite “waffle box(es).” Include a gift card for something that helps him recharge. While you’re there in bed, why not enjoy some “bingo”? Remember, for most men, bingo is the number one recharger box.
The Recharger Box
What a man finds romantic is a woman who will lower his stress! In Men Are Like Waffles—Women Are Like Spaghetti, I explain that men go to their favorite easy boxes to rest and recharge. God helped us women recognize these easy boxes in that most of them are shaped like boxes—the TV screen, the newspaper, the garage, the Xbox, the computer screen, the football field, the baseball diamond, the basketball court, the refrigerator, and the bed. The bed box (also known as the sex box) is a husband’s favorite box to go to when he is stressed out. This box or square is kind of like the center square on a bingo card, and a man can get to that box from every other square on his waffle.
Wow Assignment
Find out your man’s favorite easy box he goes to for recharging. Here are some ways to discover this vital information:
If given thirty minutes of dead time, what does he do?
If he were given a day off, where would he like to go?
What does he do now when stressed?
What does he watch on TV when relaxing? (Sports? Movies? Adventures? Fix-it shows?)
Kendra Smiley and her husband, John, wrote Do Your Kids a Favor…Love Your Spouse. John was wowed unexpectedly by Kendra with his all-time favorite box:
I’ve been a Green Bay Packers fan for years and transferred that enthusiasm to our three teenage sons. I never imagined I would actually be able to see a game at Lambeau Field because legend has it that the only way to get tickets is to inherit them when someone dies. But legends don’t stop Kendra! She called the ticket office, asking about the purchase of five tickets for the last home game of the season. After the laughter died down (I guess there was some truth to the legend), they referred her to an agency offering “Weekend Packages.” She knew we couldn’t afford all the extras of a package, and somehow she managed to convince the woman at that office to simply sell her five tickets. She gave me a gift that took her time, her effort, and a little bit of her charming persuasion. What a great model for our kids!
My man’s favorite easy box is: ________________________
Wow Wisdom
Pray and thank God for your husband. Often we women push, push, push our spouse to be more productive or work on our “honey-do” list even on his day off. If you keep pushing, he might begin to see you as a mother or a boss, not a wife and lover. A husband who gets pushed to do too many things he doesn’t enjoy will exhaust himself emotionally and grow distant from his wife. Think about how much better your life is when you are connected with your lover!
Instead of resenting your “waffleman” for needing to recharge, thank God he has a box to recharge in so he can maintain the energy to keep up with you! As Paul reminds us, “In everything give thanks” (1 Thessalonians 5:18 nasb).
Wow Date
Make him breakfast in bed and serve waffles. Give him a note for one free day off to do whatever he wants—to enjoy his favorite “waffle box(es).” Include a gift card for something that helps him recharge. While you’re there in bed, why not enjoy some “bingo”? Remember, for most men, bingo is the number one recharger box.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Healing Your Marriage When Trust Is Broken: Finding Forgiveness and Restoration by Cindy Beall
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the book:
Healing Your Marriage When Trust Is Broken: Finding Forgiveness and Restoration
Harvest House Publishers (August 1, 2011)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cindy Beall is a writer, speaker, and a mentor to women. She and her husband, Chris, speak openly about their difficult journey through Chris’ infidelity and pornography addiction that nearly destroyed their marriage and ministry. Through God’s grace they have inspired thousands of couples and have returned to full-time ministry where Chris serves as the Oklahoma City Campus Pastor at LifeChurch.tv. Visit the author's website.
SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Life changed forever for Cindy Beall when her husband, a respected pastor, confessed to pornography addiction and numerous affairs. Through her remarkable story and with biblical, practical insight, Cindy helps husbands and wives grieve, heal, as they trust God’s power to resurrect something new out of the debris of betrayal.Foreword by Craig Groeschel, bestselling author and senior pastor of LifeChurch.tv.
Product Details:
List Price: $12.99
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers (August 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0736943153
ISBN-13: 978-0736943154
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
When the Walls Come Tumbling Down
You never forget the day that changes your life forever. The day that turns your heart and your family upside down. But when that day begins, you don’t realize it’s anything out of the ordinary.
It was February 19, 2002, and my husband of nine years, Chris, and I were just getting settled into our new home in Edmond, Oklahoma. He had come out six weeks earlier on his own to begin his ministry with LifeChurch.tv as the worship pastor of the Edmond Campus. I had stayed behind in Memphis to wrap up the sale of our home there. But now we and our almost three-year-old son, Noah, were happily back together under one roof.
On this morning, while Chris was at the church, I was doing the usual stuff that nesters do. I unpacked boxes, fought with bubble wrap, and put away our belongings in the kitchen, the bathrooms, and the rest of the house. I was enjoying the process and thought how good it was to prepare our new home for this new life we had prayed about so fervently.
And then Chris came home unexpectedly at 9:30.
I was about to ask why he was back from work so soon, but the worried expression on his face stopped me from saying anything. He asked if we could talk. The request sounded so formal and distant that my heart raced as I quickly and silently got Noah settled in front of our TV with a Blue’s Clues video and inched my way along a narrow path around stacks of boxes and toward Chris. My mind was spinning in anticipation of what might come out of his mouth.
Had one of our parents died or been in an accident? Had the church changed their mind about adding Chris to the staff?
Chris motioned me to the newly purchased sofa, and we sat down together. I tried to look into his handsome green eyes for reassurance. But those amazing, clear eyes that had captivated me the day we met years before were now downcast. I waited for him to reassure me that all was well in this new life. But instead of words of comfort, the man I had prayed for as a young woman, long before I knew him, was about to share news that would alter the course of our lives in unimaginable ways.
The Prayers of a Young Woman
I first prayed for my future husband while I was serving as a summer missionary on a Native American reservation in Wyoming. Although this ministry experience would become one of the best challenges and inspirations in my life and faith journey, the day I had to say goodbye to my mom at the Austin, Texas, airport was an unhappy one. The cute denim jumper with the cheery sailor collar I wore did little to dress up my sadness at having to leave her and my home to be 1200 miles away for 11 weeks. It felt like a world and a lifetime apart.
The first couple of weeks proved to be difficult. My tear-stained cheeks initially put a damper on the adventure. But eventually I understood that I needed this time to grow up and learn to rely on God.
And I did.
I learned a lot about the woman I would become. I not only learned to lean on God but also discovered that I had a voice and something to say and something worth sharing. I learned that not all things make sense when you follow Christ. And I realized it’s okay to not have an answer for everything. In fact, it’s actually more authentic and appealing when you don’t.
In the midst of my time of learning about God, about others, and most definitely about myself, I had a longing in my heart for true love. The kind of love that would lead me to say to someone special, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” And I wasn’t the type of girl who had to have a boyfriend on her arm at all times. For one thing, I was taller than most guys my age. This is hardly an asset for a young girl’s dating potential. I also possessed an independent spirit, and I liked the freedom I was experiencing during this stage of life.
Still, this longing for true love grew. I would be turning 21 soon, and although there isn’t a guideline or time frame that says young women should fall in love by this age, I definitely wouldn’t have pushed the opportunity away. If it was the right guy, you understand. My right guy.
One particular July night during that summer mission, I stared out at the beautiful mountains bathed in sunset’s glow and began praying for others and for my future husband. At that moment, the idea popped into my head—thank You, Holy Spirit—that maybe I should pray for my husband’s salvation. So I did.
I prayed that my future husband would have the character, personality, talents, passions, and even the looks that matched up with the list I made about the man of my dreams. I didn’t think I was asking for much. Just the moon, the stars, and everything in between. Why not, right?
I first saw Chris Beall at a barn dance in November 1991. We couldn’t take our eyes off each other. He wasn’t the best dresser, nor did he have a model-perfect smile, but he held my gaze with those intoxicating green eyes. I was smitten almost immediately.
Almost.
It would be a few more months before anything actually began between us. He started frequenting the Baptist Student Union on our campus for our Wednesday lunches. Within a few weeks, at one of those lunches, he asked me for a dinner date the following Monday. I didn’t have to agonize with anticipation for five days. Instead, he came to my church on Sunday and invited me out to lunch with a group of friends. There was so much excitement and “I can’t believe this is really happening” in the air that by Sunday evening, we found ourselves sitting on the balcony of my apartment eating mint chocolate chip ice cream and talking about life, family, and mostly about Jesus. And I found out something special about Chris that evening: He’d been a Christ follower for less than a year, and the date that he gave his life to Christ was July 7, 1991—the summer that the Holy Spirit led me to pray for my future husband’s salvation.
Big sigh.
I knew with every part of my being that Chris Beall was the one for me. I knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I knew it in my knower and felt it in my feeler. But what I didn’t know was that the very next day he made a down payment on my wedding ring.
Ten months later, on January 9, 1993, we became husband and wife.
We were so madly in love with Jesus and each other that we were certain we’d conquer it all. We never would have guessed that the road we’d travel together over the course of our marriage would be anything but bliss.
Love was completely blind in our case. It’s a good thing, because little did I know that around year nine, we’d get our sight back.
Confession
I sat down next to Chris on our new couch, and as he began speaking, my throat went dry and my eyes stung with hot tears. Even though shock was making it hard for my mind to make sense of the words and phrases and sentences, my heart and soul took it all in with great sorrow. Chris wasn’t communicating the news that someone we loved was hurt. He was confessing that he, the person I loved most in the world, had hurt and betrayed me in the deepest way.
Chris had been unfaithful.
I was now trembling head to foot as my mind continued to spin with disbelief. I felt nauseous as the confession continued. He had been unfaithful with more than one woman. In fact, he had been with many women in many different places over the course of the past two and a half years.
While I listened, the very real physical pain of a heart breaking took me by surprise. And as I struggled to keep breathing, Chris forced himself to speak the last part of his confession through trembling lips: One of the women was pregnant, and he was pretty sure the baby was his child.
He kept his eyes on me. He didn’t look away for a minute, even when my face clearly changed. His eyes were tender, and I could tell he was devastated by watching me. He didn’t reach out for me right away. He seemed to be in shock that he was actually confessing. Then, as the reality set in of what his news was doing to my heart, he began to cry.
Many angry thoughts could have rushed through my mind at that point, but the unfathomable absurdity of this surreal, frozen moment in time triggered one thought over and over, “You have got to be kidding me!”
He was definitely not kidding.
He sat there just waiting for me to respond. I was stunned and couldn’t make sense of what had just happened. I sifted through emotions and terms for emotions. It was none of them specifically and all of them collectively. Bewildered. Stunned. Shocked. Overwhelmed. Befuddled. Floored. Jolted. Nauseated. Sickened. Disturbed. Crushed. Dismayed. Paralyzed.
Ticked off. And that’s putting it nicely.
The truth is that I still can’t tell you to this day how I felt in those first few moments. What I can tell you is that I was keenly aware that my world as I knew it was forever changed. I woke up that morning a relatively comfortable housewife and stay-at-home mom, and within a couple of hours I became a seriously damaged woman with a marriage on the brink of destruction.
We had both made vows to forsake all others for the rest of our lives. I had kept my vow. He had not. Even when the distance between us grew, I kept mine. He had not. Even when other men showed interest in me, I kept mine. He had not. Even when days came where I didn’t even want to spend time with him, I kept mine. He had not.
When the Walls Fall Down
I was deeply wounded by the truth about the lies that poured from my loved one that morning. I ached not only for me but also for the new church that had hired and embraced Chris. For our son. For our families. For our friends. As the walls of the life we had built came tumbling down, hard realization after hard realization, I felt them crush the foundations of our shared life and the dreams of this new chapter we were entering.
Can you relate to that kind of letdown? Destruction? Betrayal? When the walls have fallen down with such force that you could not breathe beneath the pressure of the debris or see beyond the dust of the rubble?
My spirit was broken that morning. My heart was shattered. Thoughts of moving forward in life or taking positive action would have sounded absurd had anyone been there to suggest them. I could barely conceive of moving my body from that place on the couch. In fact, the only reason I was able to stand up and move was that the impulse to step away from Chris was so strong. I wanted to be as removed from him physically as I felt from him emotionally in that moment. I had never, ever felt so alone.
If you are feeling alone, know that I am here to journey with you, and so is God. He already desires to make you whole, even as the pieces of your known existence seem to be scattered to every corner of the universe. If the walls have tumbled and you cannot recognize truth from lies in the remains, know that God’s grace and power to transform your life are right there in the midst of the debris.
Hold on to your belief in redemption.
I kept mine. Please keep yours as we walk together toward healing.
Your Healing Journey
Has your spouse ever caught you off guard with a heartbreaking confession? If so, what was your initial response?
Have you ever had to make a confession that you knew would break your loved one’s heart? What finally helped you break your cycle of lies?
Have you ever received news that altered your life in a dramatic way? What was it, and how did you handle it? If you are able, take yourself back there mentally and allow God to bring healing as you grieve what you lost and as you journey through this book.
What happens when we bottle up our emotions and choose not to deal with them? Do you know people who do this ? Has this been you? How can you become more able to share or express your emotions?
Discuss ways you can remain committed to your marriage even when you don’t feel like it or when circumstances have caused a lack of connection between you and your spouse.
You never forget the day that changes your life forever. The day that turns your heart and your family upside down. But when that day begins, you don’t realize it’s anything out of the ordinary.
It was February 19, 2002, and my husband of nine years, Chris, and I were just getting settled into our new home in Edmond, Oklahoma. He had come out six weeks earlier on his own to begin his ministry with LifeChurch.tv as the worship pastor of the Edmond Campus. I had stayed behind in Memphis to wrap up the sale of our home there. But now we and our almost three-year-old son, Noah, were happily back together under one roof.
On this morning, while Chris was at the church, I was doing the usual stuff that nesters do. I unpacked boxes, fought with bubble wrap, and put away our belongings in the kitchen, the bathrooms, and the rest of the house. I was enjoying the process and thought how good it was to prepare our new home for this new life we had prayed about so fervently.
And then Chris came home unexpectedly at 9:30.
I was about to ask why he was back from work so soon, but the worried expression on his face stopped me from saying anything. He asked if we could talk. The request sounded so formal and distant that my heart raced as I quickly and silently got Noah settled in front of our TV with a Blue’s Clues video and inched my way along a narrow path around stacks of boxes and toward Chris. My mind was spinning in anticipation of what might come out of his mouth.
Had one of our parents died or been in an accident? Had the church changed their mind about adding Chris to the staff?
Chris motioned me to the newly purchased sofa, and we sat down together. I tried to look into his handsome green eyes for reassurance. But those amazing, clear eyes that had captivated me the day we met years before were now downcast. I waited for him to reassure me that all was well in this new life. But instead of words of comfort, the man I had prayed for as a young woman, long before I knew him, was about to share news that would alter the course of our lives in unimaginable ways.
The Prayers of a Young Woman
I first prayed for my future husband while I was serving as a summer missionary on a Native American reservation in Wyoming. Although this ministry experience would become one of the best challenges and inspirations in my life and faith journey, the day I had to say goodbye to my mom at the Austin, Texas, airport was an unhappy one. The cute denim jumper with the cheery sailor collar I wore did little to dress up my sadness at having to leave her and my home to be 1200 miles away for 11 weeks. It felt like a world and a lifetime apart.
The first couple of weeks proved to be difficult. My tear-stained cheeks initially put a damper on the adventure. But eventually I understood that I needed this time to grow up and learn to rely on God.
And I did.
I learned a lot about the woman I would become. I not only learned to lean on God but also discovered that I had a voice and something to say and something worth sharing. I learned that not all things make sense when you follow Christ. And I realized it’s okay to not have an answer for everything. In fact, it’s actually more authentic and appealing when you don’t.
In the midst of my time of learning about God, about others, and most definitely about myself, I had a longing in my heart for true love. The kind of love that would lead me to say to someone special, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” And I wasn’t the type of girl who had to have a boyfriend on her arm at all times. For one thing, I was taller than most guys my age. This is hardly an asset for a young girl’s dating potential. I also possessed an independent spirit, and I liked the freedom I was experiencing during this stage of life.
Still, this longing for true love grew. I would be turning 21 soon, and although there isn’t a guideline or time frame that says young women should fall in love by this age, I definitely wouldn’t have pushed the opportunity away. If it was the right guy, you understand. My right guy.
One particular July night during that summer mission, I stared out at the beautiful mountains bathed in sunset’s glow and began praying for others and for my future husband. At that moment, the idea popped into my head—thank You, Holy Spirit—that maybe I should pray for my husband’s salvation. So I did.
I prayed that my future husband would have the character, personality, talents, passions, and even the looks that matched up with the list I made about the man of my dreams. I didn’t think I was asking for much. Just the moon, the stars, and everything in between. Why not, right?
I first saw Chris Beall at a barn dance in November 1991. We couldn’t take our eyes off each other. He wasn’t the best dresser, nor did he have a model-perfect smile, but he held my gaze with those intoxicating green eyes. I was smitten almost immediately.
Almost.
It would be a few more months before anything actually began between us. He started frequenting the Baptist Student Union on our campus for our Wednesday lunches. Within a few weeks, at one of those lunches, he asked me for a dinner date the following Monday. I didn’t have to agonize with anticipation for five days. Instead, he came to my church on Sunday and invited me out to lunch with a group of friends. There was so much excitement and “I can’t believe this is really happening” in the air that by Sunday evening, we found ourselves sitting on the balcony of my apartment eating mint chocolate chip ice cream and talking about life, family, and mostly about Jesus. And I found out something special about Chris that evening: He’d been a Christ follower for less than a year, and the date that he gave his life to Christ was July 7, 1991—the summer that the Holy Spirit led me to pray for my future husband’s salvation.
Big sigh.
I knew with every part of my being that Chris Beall was the one for me. I knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I knew it in my knower and felt it in my feeler. But what I didn’t know was that the very next day he made a down payment on my wedding ring.
Ten months later, on January 9, 1993, we became husband and wife.
We were so madly in love with Jesus and each other that we were certain we’d conquer it all. We never would have guessed that the road we’d travel together over the course of our marriage would be anything but bliss.
Love was completely blind in our case. It’s a good thing, because little did I know that around year nine, we’d get our sight back.
Confession
I sat down next to Chris on our new couch, and as he began speaking, my throat went dry and my eyes stung with hot tears. Even though shock was making it hard for my mind to make sense of the words and phrases and sentences, my heart and soul took it all in with great sorrow. Chris wasn’t communicating the news that someone we loved was hurt. He was confessing that he, the person I loved most in the world, had hurt and betrayed me in the deepest way.
Chris had been unfaithful.
I was now trembling head to foot as my mind continued to spin with disbelief. I felt nauseous as the confession continued. He had been unfaithful with more than one woman. In fact, he had been with many women in many different places over the course of the past two and a half years.
While I listened, the very real physical pain of a heart breaking took me by surprise. And as I struggled to keep breathing, Chris forced himself to speak the last part of his confession through trembling lips: One of the women was pregnant, and he was pretty sure the baby was his child.
He kept his eyes on me. He didn’t look away for a minute, even when my face clearly changed. His eyes were tender, and I could tell he was devastated by watching me. He didn’t reach out for me right away. He seemed to be in shock that he was actually confessing. Then, as the reality set in of what his news was doing to my heart, he began to cry.
Many angry thoughts could have rushed through my mind at that point, but the unfathomable absurdity of this surreal, frozen moment in time triggered one thought over and over, “You have got to be kidding me!”
He was definitely not kidding.
He sat there just waiting for me to respond. I was stunned and couldn’t make sense of what had just happened. I sifted through emotions and terms for emotions. It was none of them specifically and all of them collectively. Bewildered. Stunned. Shocked. Overwhelmed. Befuddled. Floored. Jolted. Nauseated. Sickened. Disturbed. Crushed. Dismayed. Paralyzed.
Ticked off. And that’s putting it nicely.
The truth is that I still can’t tell you to this day how I felt in those first few moments. What I can tell you is that I was keenly aware that my world as I knew it was forever changed. I woke up that morning a relatively comfortable housewife and stay-at-home mom, and within a couple of hours I became a seriously damaged woman with a marriage on the brink of destruction.
We had both made vows to forsake all others for the rest of our lives. I had kept my vow. He had not. Even when the distance between us grew, I kept mine. He had not. Even when other men showed interest in me, I kept mine. He had not. Even when days came where I didn’t even want to spend time with him, I kept mine. He had not.
When the Walls Fall Down
I was deeply wounded by the truth about the lies that poured from my loved one that morning. I ached not only for me but also for the new church that had hired and embraced Chris. For our son. For our families. For our friends. As the walls of the life we had built came tumbling down, hard realization after hard realization, I felt them crush the foundations of our shared life and the dreams of this new chapter we were entering.
Can you relate to that kind of letdown? Destruction? Betrayal? When the walls have fallen down with such force that you could not breathe beneath the pressure of the debris or see beyond the dust of the rubble?
My spirit was broken that morning. My heart was shattered. Thoughts of moving forward in life or taking positive action would have sounded absurd had anyone been there to suggest them. I could barely conceive of moving my body from that place on the couch. In fact, the only reason I was able to stand up and move was that the impulse to step away from Chris was so strong. I wanted to be as removed from him physically as I felt from him emotionally in that moment. I had never, ever felt so alone.
If you are feeling alone, know that I am here to journey with you, and so is God. He already desires to make you whole, even as the pieces of your known existence seem to be scattered to every corner of the universe. If the walls have tumbled and you cannot recognize truth from lies in the remains, know that God’s grace and power to transform your life are right there in the midst of the debris.
Hold on to your belief in redemption.
I kept mine. Please keep yours as we walk together toward healing.
Your Healing Journey
Has your spouse ever caught you off guard with a heartbreaking confession? If so, what was your initial response?
Have you ever had to make a confession that you knew would break your loved one’s heart? What finally helped you break your cycle of lies?
Have you ever received news that altered your life in a dramatic way? What was it, and how did you handle it? If you are able, take yourself back there mentally and allow God to bring healing as you grieve what you lost and as you journey through this book.
What happens when we bottle up our emotions and choose not to deal with them? Do you know people who do this ? Has this been you? How can you become more able to share or express your emotions?
Discuss ways you can remain committed to your marriage even when you don’t feel like it or when circumstances have caused a lack of connection between you and your spouse.
Cindy isn't afraid to open herself and her wounds to share some great advice. Really great book.
Jody
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