Night Road

"Night Road" by Kristin Hannah

Another good one by Kristin.  I haven't read one of hers yet that I don't like.  This story takes place in a small town, families who know each other, kids growing up together, small community helping one another.  A young girl comes to town to live with her aunt after numerous foster homes.  She isn't like the other kids but none the less gets excepted.  She makes a best friend at school and soon becomes like family.  She falls in love with her best friends twin brother.  She loves this family and would do anything to hurt them until one fateful night of drinking at a party changes everything.  Lexi will lose everything she loved.  Will she ever forget that night?  Will there ever be forgiveness for her?  "The last thing in the world she wanted was to stand here, pretending she wasn't shattered inside, but she couldn't make herself move, either."  Sometimes we are so broken we can't pretend.  "Mostly, she'd learned that some pain simply could neither be cured nor ignored nor healed."  Facing the pain allows the healing.  I believe all pain can heal, doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt, just becomes less hurt I guess.  "What you did isn't the sum total of who you are."  Truth for all of us.  "When you love someone...and you lose them, you can kind of lose yourself, too."  A deep loss that grieves us can make us lose a piece of who we are.  "It was easier to suppress heartache than to overcome it."  "Maybe you need to be broken a little before you can put yourself back together."  The breaking is what puts us back together.  It's in the breaking we find ourselves and that we alone can't fix it.  It's in this place that God can do His work to put us back together again.  "People think love is an act of faith.  Sometimes it's an act of will."  The feelings won't always be there so sometimes it takes just being willing to show love despite the feelings.  "She didn't know how she would correct all the wrong paths she'd taken, but it was time to start undoing her mistakes.  One at a time."  That's where you start, one step at a time, it's never too late.  "She'd known it all along; she'd looked away from it purposely, afraid that the pain would kill her.  But not feeling had taken away her joy, too, left her in that gray haze of numbness."  We often try and suppress the pain because it hurts too much but in doing that we also suppress all our other emotions.  "In the sea of grief, there were islands of grace, moments in time when one could remember what was left rather than all that had been lost."  Grief takes time, we all do it differently but there will come a time where rather than the pain of the loss the  joy of having lived becomes greater.

A Dream Deferred A Joy Achieved

A Dream Deferred A Joy Achieved by Charisse Nesbit

This book is a collection of stories of children in the foster system who have made it through and gone on to succeed in life.  The author was a foster child herself and wrote the book because she was tired of hearing all the horrible stories of children in foster care.  There are success stories to be told of resilient children that despite what was stacked against them, succeeded.  "Savasia says she never became accustomed to being called a 'foster child': I hated those words.  They made me sound like I was somebody else's hand-me-down."  I am thankful for the perspective of this book, that I was able to learn straight from these children's stories.  "Remember, you are so much more than what you came from.  You cannot choose your parents or cannot explain their behavior.  You now have the opportunity to really understand who you are and what you can be.  An environment will have an impact on what's around it, but you can still rise above it."  I love those words of encouragement to children going through the system, they can rise above, we all can.  "I am in no way excusing the abuse.  I just now understand the circumstances."  "For kids in the foster system, she offers these words: 'First, I love you.  I know what you're going through.  Keep dreaming your dreams even though you feel powerless.  When the sadness overwhelms you, pray-make friends with God.  Speak up!  Your voice is important, and it MATTERS.'"  "I couldn't tell my secrets because if I did, I would have to defend myself even more becasue by saying I am a foster youth, I am saying to them that I am on drugs, a thief, will become pregnant as a teen, or will be a juvenile delinquent.  If I was a foster youth, according to statistics, I was not to be trusted.  I was not to be defended..."  The labels that we have given foster youth need to be thrown out.  We need to give these kids a chance, we need to defend them and show them that they are loved.  I recommend this book for a great perspective on our foster youth from our foster youth.