Julie Klassen

Do you not pray, Miss Smallwood?'She avoided his gaze. 'No.''God is speaking to you every day,' he said softly. 'You might return the favor.'She raised her chin. 'I don't hear Him.''Do you listen?'She looked at him, clearly offended, then turned away again. 'I used to pray, until I found God was not listening, at least not to my pra

Please forgive me for the way I've treated her, Rachel prayed. Please help me repair the damage I've done. Help her to forgive me too. Oh merciful Father, help me not to be so full of myself that there is no room for anyone else. And worse, no room for you.

Manage the inn, Jane, save it. Have a mission in life. Discover that work worth doing is about more than profit and toil. It's about using the gifts and ability you've been given to serve your fellow man and please your Maker.

You are free to go, Father," she whispered. "We are all of us free." Olivia finally understood what Mr Tugwell had tried to tell her. This was how it was for every fallen crteature. Christ bore the penalty we each deserve, to purchase our freedom.

At the door he turned and looked back. She stood, facing away from him, the sunlight from the window enshrouding her in an unmerited halo of gold. Perhaps, he thought, that was how God saw all His children. Selfish and fallen, yes. But in the forgiving light of His Son, each wore an unmerited halo

I have been praying, too, for the first time in my life. That parson, Tugwell, he helped me see - not the error of my ways, for I knew them all to well already - but what was wanting in me. I am far from perfect, I know, but I am changed and changing still

Where has God promised to fulfill our every whim according to the minutia of our earthly desires? Where has He promised to keep us from suffering or disappointment? Things He did not spare His own Son? You were raised in one of the finest manors in the borough, by a man and woman who could not have loved you better. You have been given the best education, the best of everything. You are of sound mind and limb, and yet you dare to rail at God? I for one grow weary of it. Now leave off simpering like an ungrateful brat and make something of this new life you've been given.

You do not esteem good deeds?" She shifted the basket handle to both hands, just as a cool breeze blew a bonnet string across her face. "My dear Miss Keene, what would the world be without them?" He brushed the string from her cheek. "Are we not admonished to be doers and not merely hearers of His word? Yet not on a mountain of good deeds can we climb our way to heaven.

Come to think of it, she did not speak a word. Yet I could have sworn she had the most beautiful voice.

How long had it had been since she'd thought back on the evenings around the fire, number games at the kitchen table, or listening to her father sing? Too long. Yes, there had been bad times. And she had tallied them like figures in a column, not remembering to factor in the good. She had doctored the books.

I remember everything about you, Miss Macy. Every moment between us__he good and the bad._ He chuckled dryly. __hough I prefer to linger on more recent pleasant moments.

You don't wear jewelry, do you? Besides your wedding ring, I mean?''Now often. If is not that I disapprove. I simply don't take the time to bother with it. I've been given a few trinkets over the years, but rarely wear them.' Thora looked down at her hand, the plain thin wedding band, the unadorned wrist, and a memory struck her. She said, 'Frank gave me a gift once - a find gold bracelet with a blue enamel heart dangling from it. He said it was to remind me that I was more than his helpmeet and housekeeper, but also an attractive woman. I was sure I'd break the delicate chain, and the heart clacked against the desk whenever I wrote in the ledger. So I put it back in its box, and there it has remained ever since.'Nan said gently, 'We've all been given gifts, Thors, and ought not to hide them away. They remind us that we are blessed and loved. They give pleasure to those who see them - especially to the one who bestowed the gift in the first place.

The schoolroom . . . Olivia had always adored its confines and endless horizons. The melodious purr of the teacher's voice rising up and down her lessons like a musical score. And the sight of book spines--black, blue, green--lined up side by side like London townhouses. Each leather rectangle a gift waiting to be opened and explored and savored.

Mr. Upchurch,_ she fumbled. ___._._. I must take my leave directly. But before I go, allow me to say how sorry I am for the callous way I treated you in the past. I regret it most keenly._ His heart squeezed even as he felt his brows rise. __o you?_ She swallowed. __ was wrong about you. I was wrong about a great many things.

We all of us die, Miss Smallwood,' he interrupted. 'But we don't all of us make our lives count for something. How much better to die saving another soul than to stand safe on shore and do nothing while others perish?

How rough your hands still are.__mbarrassed, she made to pull them away, but he held them fast. __et never have I longed to kiss any woman__ hands as I long to kiss these.

I need to hear the words of this book__ts truth, forgiveness, hope__s much as anybody._ Nathaniel looked up with an apologetic smile. __ know I__ no great orator. But I ask you to bear with me as I fumble through this new duty.

But I don't think any parent can expect to escape this life without disappointing his child at some point. And the same could be said the other way around. We all of us fall short now and again, and disappoint someone dear to us, or ourselves. Thankfully, my parents have always been the forgiving sort.