Love is a Wonderful Thing

I have always loved to read. I could never get enough of great children's books as a kid.. but I distinctly remember gingerly crossing the literary bridge into quality 'grown-up' books. I believe I was in the 8th grade. As much as I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder and her escapades on the prairie, I found myself tiring of the same stories I had read for years and was looking for something similar.. yet refreshingly new to me.

I found that in Janette Oke's Love Comes Softly series. Set during the same time frame as Wilder's works and filled with Christian spirit and hope, I immediately knew these were the books I had been needing.

In this first installment, we meet a very young Martha (Marty) who has just lost her husband in a tragic fall from a horse while on their way to new land with a wagon train. I cannot describe to you how I felt when I read for the first time that she was about to face life alone and empty. I was so devastated for Marty.. I cried for hours.

I was outraged, as she was, when a man from the wagon train (Clark) approaches her to *ask her hand in marriage*?! I could not fathom such a thing. Especially when the offering came within minutes of her husband's burial. Of course, he's simply offering to look after her needs.. and in exchange, she will provide a mother for his very small daughter. She concedes almost angrily, realizing this is her only chance for survival.

Oke skillfully portrays Clark and Marty as struggling, hurting pioneers who just want to make it through another day; Marty learns that Clark only recently lost his Ellen.. and even tiny baby Missy has felt the void left by her mother's death. To add to the sorrow, Marty is expecting her first child.. and has to deal daily with the fact that the baby's father will not be alive to see the birth of his child.

Throughout the first few chapters of this book, you will find yourself aching with both Marty and Clark.. and even baby Missy, as they strive to get past some of the hurt and continue to open their eyes to each new morning. As the book progresses, though, Marty begins to notice that the hope in Clark's eyes and heart is coming directly from his faith in God.. and she finds herself yearning to know the peace that has settled in his soul. You will rejoice when, bit by bit, happiness enters the lives of this beautiful, 'patchwork' family once more.

Sometimes love really must come softly.