Papa's Wife

I love to re-read books. It's like seeing an old friend. Sure, nothing in the book has changed but I have changed and so inevitably I'll read a passage that I've read once (or twice or four) times before but this time it will make me pause and think a minute. Erik laughs at me sometimes and asks if it's time to read Mother's Hens again. That's what he calls "Mother Carey's Chickens" by Kate Douglas Wiggin (one of my all time favorites and well worth your time). I find I read this one once or twice a year, though my midwife borrowed it and I haven't gotten it back yet so I'm behind.
Today I picked up "Papa's Wife". The book belonged to my Grandma Dorothy and I think she recommended it when I was in middle school and was searching for something to read on her bookshelves when I spent the night. I think I first loved it because it is about a Swedish family and I have always loved that I have a lot of Swedish in me. It is also about a minister's family with 8 children and they immigrate to America but more importantly it is about faith lived out. There are times that I can't see the words on the page for the tears in my eyes but at the end it leaves me desiring to simply live out my faith, in my life and in my family.
Here is the passage that made me pause this time through the book; I pray this can be said of my faith someday:

"Faith, to Mama, was as simple as the word itself. It was never a matter that had to be weighed, nor did it require spiritual ceremonies to achieve it. She merely believed, and it came to pass. If the day seemed dark and beset by problems, her faith in the goodness of God brightened dull skies and lightened the problems. Many times she beheld, with wonder, the mysterious ways of the Lord, and so never questioned His wisdom. A miracle in the making, she had come to realize, at the time often appeared to be an insurmountable tragedy."
Papa's Wife by Thyra Ferre Bjorn