Cry

This morning, after a very late Friday night, I pulled open my swollen, red eyes and cringed at the pulsing headache coursing through my brain. Was this some kind of a hangover? No. I'm not a drinker. I'm a reader. A reader who stayed up waaaay too late drinking in one of the saddest stories I have ever read. I devour books, dangerously shoving everything else in my world onto the back burner, which is why I don't read often. My family likes to eat and wear clean clothes.

It has been a while since a book gripped me the way that this one did. I was about a quarter of the way through it when I grabbed it off of the counter and plopped down on the couch at about nine-thirty last night. I didn't move until I turned the last page at one-thirty. Well, there was the trip to the kitchen for the box of Kleenex. They were a necessity. The tears started to fall and before I knew it I was completely sobbing. Snotting type sobbing. Shoulder shaking sobs, it was definitely an ugly-face cry. It got to the point that I almost couldn't see the words on the page in front of my face, so tragic was the story. This morning, my eyelids hurt.

The book was "Fair is the Rose" by Liz Curtis Higgs, a sequel to "A Thorn in My Heart". If you haven't read it and intend to then don't read on. I'm about to drop some spoilers.

Only they aren't really spoilers because the book was very predictable. I think that is what made it so sad. I knew exactly what was coming. Set in Scotland in the 1700's, this was basically a retelling of the biblical story of Leah and Jacob and Rachel. It was a story I was very familiar with and that had always haunted me. How did it really go down that wedding night in the tent? How did he not know that it was Leah, not Rachel in his bed? How in the world did the sisters even BEGIN to go on with daily life after the drama that had just gone down? I know "Fair is the Rose" is a work of fiction but it brought real life flesh to the story. It brought to light deep emotions that must have been very real to those three who were really there.

As I read my bible lately, I've really been trying to put my self in the shoes of the people I am reading about. What was it like for them? They were real people just like us with laundry and chapped lips. I really want to get a grasp on the humanity that is all over the pages. Real lives. Sometimes I think the stories become so familiar and so routine that we forget about the emotions and decisions that were so real to those involved.

When I finished reading of Leana and Rose and Jaime, I had a new found compassion for Leah and Rachel and Jacob. What a tangled mess their lives were. The betrayal and raw love is gut-wrenching. But there was a plan, a greater purpose that threaded it's way through their situation. God's hand was on them, no matter what. And last night it touched me deeply. The pile of Kleenex in my trash can is proof.