Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Archives for July 2012

A sentimental journey: Review of Promise Me This by Cathy Gohlke

The Titanic sinks. Britain enters World War I.

I promise, I’m not reviewing the first season of Downton Abbey. But my husband and I had just finished watching that when I started reading Promise Me This by Cathy Gohlke. Set in the same time period but  nowhere near the same story. I was all set for the setting, and with the Olympics starting this week in London, I have England on the brain.

All of that, and the fact that this is a heartwarming, breathtaking, gut-wrenching story of sacrificial love, made for an enjoyable read. I can’t wait to pick of Gohlke’s next book, releasing in September.

Orphan and “gutter rat” Michael Dunnegan forms an unlikely friendship with Owen Allen, who is sailing for America on the Titanic. Michael stows away on the ill-fated ship and Owen saves Michael’s life — at the expense of his own — when the ship sinks. Michael makes it to America and takes up Owen’s dream of prospering the family garden business and bringing Owen’s sister Annie to America. What follows is the lengths to which the characters will go to protect family and make good on promises in light of the sacrifices of a man they all loved. It is painfully sad and joyously hopeful and even if you’re tired of Titanic-themed stories (I thought I was), check this one out. The ship’s sinking is the catalyst for the story but not the main action.

Even when I enjoy a book, it’s rare that I dog-ear a page to save a quote, but I did just that. (To my husband’s mock horror that I would “ruin” a library book.) I was moved by this:

It can’t be that easy. It can’t be that whatever happens, you  just keep going. Michael was sure of it.

“That’s all there is to it,” she said as if she’d heard his thoughts. “Each morning, when we wake — if we wake — we pick up whatever it is we’ve been given to carry for that day, with the sweet Lord Jesus in the yoke beside us to tote the load. Each night we lay it down, giving it into God’s hands. If it’s still there in the morning, we pick it up and begin again. If the burden is gone or if there is something different, we know where to start.”

Want to read more? You can find the first chapter here.

The characters in this book face some heavy burdens. Don’t we all? This story is a ray of hope in ever-increasing darkness.

The Sound of Silence

This came across my Facebook feed this week and I had to share it.

 

This is one of the hardest things about parenting, for me.

The endless questions. The constant chatter. The nonstop noise.

I’m an introvert. And a contemplative. I think more than I speak and when I speak, I tend to write because the words come out better that way. I enjoy silence. And quiet. I almost “shushed” someone in a library this week, and she worked there! I used to love having music on when the house was quiet as a way to focus my thoughts, but more often than not I now choose silence.

In the devotional I’m reading right now, Blessed Are You, the meditations open and close with a call for silence and stillness before the Lord. And sometimes I laugh when I read it because silence and stillness just aren’t part of my life right now. “Mom, mom, mom, I need …” are sometimes the first words of the day. And with a potty-training 2-year-old in the house, just when I’m about to start something or relax for a moment, the urge hits and we’re running to the bathroom to avoid “clean-up on aisle 9.”

Even if I could find time for silence, cutting out the noise altogether is increasingly difficult. Every spring and summer, when we’re able to throw open the windows and let fresh air in, my husband and I are surprised at how noisy things are outside. Suddenly we can hear the train and every car that drives by with music blaring and people and kids walking by. None of which are bad things, mind you, but summer is a season for noise.

Winter, on the other hand, is much quieter. When I was working a full-time job outside the home, before marriage and babies, I liked to pause on the front steps of my parents’ house in winter as I left the house, breathe deep, and relish the quiet.

In winter there is a stillness unmatched by any other season. Life emerges in spring. And flourishes in summer. And begins the descent to death and dormancy in autumn. And in winter, all is quiet. Animals sleep and burrow. Humans huddle in their homes. Nature rests.

There are a lot of things I dislike about winter, but the quietness of it is not one of them.

Our life with two kiddos, a job hunt, writing deadlines and the general stuff of life is painfully noisy. And I yearn for quiet. Although it makes me uncomfortable. When the kids were with their grandparents for a week earlier this month, our house was unnaturally quiet. And it disturbed me. Maybe because it leaves my ears open to hear from God, who is quieter than I’d like Him to be right now. Or maybe I’m the one drowning Him out.

A friend of ours talks about spending days in silence while visiting a monastery. And how youth groups come to the monastery to spend time in silence. How uncomfortable and refreshing I imagine something like that would be.

For now, though, I know I must seek out silence. Silence will not come to me. It won’t just happen. If I need it, I need to make it happen. Turn off the TV or the music. Wake up early. Or sit outside before the demands of the day take over.

Are you a silence seeker? How do you find time and space for it in your day?