Waiting for Morning by Karen Kingsbury

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Here's the deal: I'm a Karen Kingsbury fan.  I don't read a lot of her books because I have this weird phobia that if I read them all, then I'm all caught up and then what?  Tragic, isn't it? Combine that with the fact that I can barely keep up with the books I read for my reviews and I don't get a lot of Karen Kingsbury read.  That being said,  this is the first in a series and I already have the last in a series and I'm tempted to go borrow the middle one in the series from the library, so I can get the whole story all at once.

This is not a new book by Karen. In fact, it was first published in 1999, so I'm not sure why it was an option for reviewing, but I'm not complaining.  I will say that I didn't care for the style of book: it was one of the short and fat kinds rather than the taller thinner version.  But, I suppose this time the book fit the reader, at least this one!

The story is fascinating: a drunk driver runs a stoplight and slams into a Ford Explorer killing the dad and 15 year old daughter, injuring the 13 year old and sending the mom who was at home at the time of the accident into a hating tailspin.  For the next year, the mom, Hannah, is consumed with nothing but getting the drunk driver jailed.  She was a professing Christian until the accident at which time she decided that God was not there or He would have protected her family.  Not a good assumption to make; I haven't had my family ripped from me in that sense, but I've lost too many people I loved in the last 18 months and God is Someone you need desperately during those times, even if you don't really communicate with Him. The comfort of knowing your loved ones are with Him is healing in itself.

Okay, back off my rabbit trail, but the book's focus is forgiveness.  Hannah didn't seek God again until her daughter lay on a bed of suicide and the doctors were unsure if she would ever wake up again from her coma.  Forgiveness for the drunk driver didn't come until a message was delivered to her from someone who had sat with her husband during his dying moments.  Her husband knew her tendency to hold grudges and refuse to forgive and his final words for her were: "please forgive...forgive."

Another focus in the book was Lamentations.  Lamentations is a sad, depressing read for the most part. Listen:

The Lord determined to tear down the wall around the Daughter of Zion. 2:8a
Together they wasted away. 2:8b
My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within, my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed. 2:11a
He has walled me in so I cannot escape; he has weighed me down with chains. 3:7

But then listen to this:
Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. 3:22-23

This was a great book. Yes, there was a tiny bit of romance, I guess, but hardly.  You knew where it was headed anyway.

This book was given me by Blogging for Books for the purpose of reading and writing a review on it.  All opinions expressed are my own.

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