Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Archives for October 2012

Christmas in October: Review of A Sweethaven Christmas by Courtney Walsh

All good things must come to an end, right? Sad but true. And for the gals of Sweethaven, it had to happen sooner or later.

The third and final book in Courtney Walsh’s Sweethaven series, A Sweethaven Christmas, released earlier this month and has me ready to trim the tree, make cookies and play endless hours of Christmas music. (It’s too soon, right?)

If you’re new to the series, check out my reviews of the first two books: A Sweethaven Summer and A Sweethaven Homecoming.

The holidays are in full swing in Sweethaven as the families start celebrating this special time of year. With the hurt and healing of the summer still fresh in their lives, Campbell, Jane, Lila, Adele, and Meghan look to the future with promise of good things to come.

Courtney has done an amazing job creating the community of Sweethaven, and the Christmas setting of this book had me pining for a small-town Christmas celebration. If you’ve never had the pleasure of attending a Christmas walk or seeing a winter holiday parade, you’re missing out. Both my hometown and the town where I live now have a Christmas/holiday celebration that warms my heart despite the chill in the air. The Sweethaven celebration was everything a small-town holiday event should be.

Jane’s weight-loss journey in this book was particularly moving for me, although for a couple of chapters I got tired of her whining and insecurity about her weight. (Then I was reminded how tiring my own whining and insecurity about my weight are. Touche.) Her insecurities may be the most obvious of all the women, but they all deal with it in different ways. And that’s what I’ve loved about this journey. After three books, I feel like I know these women. Shoot, I AM these women, in some way or another. Courtney has encapsulated in these women the myriad issues we women deal with. And she’s given us hope that with God, good friends and gumption, we can get through, and even over, the stuff that messes up our lives.

I didn’t realize how much these women meant to me (I know they’re just characters in a book, but they’ve become my friends!) until I found myself crying, on the brink of a major sobfest, as the book drew to a close. The only reason I didn’t have a complete breakdown is that my husband was sitting on the couch across the room, and I didn’t want him to think something was wrong with me. (Confession: Something IS wrong with me.)

The road these women have traveled was long, and I’m glad to have been a companion on the journey. The end of Sweethaven is bittersweet, and I imagine as an author, that takes on a new meaning. Personally, I can’t wait to see what Courtney has cooking next.

Costly decisions

Two summers ago, the kids and I were spending two weeks sandwiched between wedding events in Illinois while my husband worked and attended class in Pennsylvania. On one of those days, our son, who was not yet 2, had a miserable ear infection, we suspected. So, we took him to an urgent care clinic where he was poked in the ear, and gagged in the throat (checking for strep) and eventually diagnosed with an ear infection. Medicine prescribed and we were on our way.

At the time, we had low-income insurance for our kids in Pennsylvania, which pays for doctors’ visits and prescriptions. I had no idea what an urgent care visit would cost, but we had to do something.

A few months later, we got the bill. Yikes! It took us a few months to pay it and reminded me that decisions, even good ones, seldom happen without a cost.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot the last few days. My husband and I are college-educated and essentially unemployed. We’re job hunting without much success. We’re raising two passionate, stubborn, creative kids. We’re hundreds of miles from family. We’re sure of the next step, until we’re not. We’re hoping. And doubting. And waiting. And searching. And trying to explain what’s on our hearts.

I read these words from Oswald Chambers (Mary DeMuth quoted him in her new book Everything: What you give and what you gain to become like Jesus, which I will review here in a couple of weeks) and they say everything, encouraging me to press on with this unpredictable journey.

If we obey God it is going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the sting comes in. We can disobey God if we choose, and it will bring immediate relief to the situation, but shall be a grief to our Lord. Whereas if we obey God, He will look after those who have been pressed into the consequences of our obedience. We have simply to obey and leave all consequences with Him.

Moving to Pennsylvania has been hard on our family and extended family. But it has been the best thing for our growth. Seminary was the hardest four years of our lives. But it has planted seeds in our hearts that have yet to show their fruit. Having two kids less than two years apart has been nothing short of insanity. And even though I want to escape some days, I wouldn’t trade away the lessons we’ve learned or the little people who have invaded our hearts and our lives.

Life doesn’t always make sense. It’s not making sense to us right now. But we know what we know. And we know what we’re supposed to do. We just don’t yet know the “how” of all of it.

These decisions, these steps of faith, they’ve not been made lightly. They’ve cost us plenty. But if we hadn’t taken them, we’d have lost so much more.

Please, pray for us. And with us.

We have counted the cost and found obedience to Christ worth everything, even the loss of all we know.

Now we count on Him to carry us.