"Love Comes Softly"

Isn't it amazing that God knows what we need before we need it?

I went back to read one of my all-time favorite books, "Love Comes Softly" by Janette Oke. I first read it when I was an early teen, and I went on to read all the series and all of the books the Oke wrote solo. My mom has all of them, I think.

They are all wonderful, and she was truly a gifted writer. However, I don't think most came as successfully as the "Love Comes Softly" series.

Once you start reading it's hard to put the book down. I haven't read much lately, and still I read it in only three sittings.

It's the tale of Marty Claridge, who loses her young husband and is forced to marry a man in the Canadian West that she doesn't know just because she needs a place to live and he needs a mother for his little girl.

They bear with each other, barely. However, the time comes that they aren't sure they want to part in the spring, when Clark promised Marty he would pay for the money to take the wagon train back East.

Spoiler alert: In the second book, Clark and Marty are truly husband and wife, and Marty wakes up after having a bad dream about losing her first husband again. However, she's thankful she's not alone anymore. God put Clark in her life long before she knew that she wanted or needed him. She thanks God that he did what was best even before she knew what that was.

I know it's just a story, but I love the fact that it illustrates how little we know about God and how little faith we have in him. If we just lived one day at a time and stopped worrying about the future, we would see that God has everything under control. He doesn't need help from us.