Second in The Prayer Jars series, Wanda Brunstetter welcomes the reader back to Strasburg, Pennsylvania and the home and farm of Mary Ruth and Willis Lapp. I appreciate this powerful novel much more than The Hope Jar.
The Lapps are folks I think many of us would like to have as grandparents! After the death of Rhoda, her mother, Sara Murray found a letter in Mom’s Bible that changed her life. The letter explained how her mother had been raised Amish.
When Rhoda learned she was pregnant, she left her loving parents, never returning. Sara does not know who her father is, only her stepfather, Dean. Sara has since visited and spent time with the Lapps after a young woman, Michelle, deceived them, letting them think she was their granddaughter.
She left when she knew the real Sara was arriving, and her Amish friend Ezekiel brought her back to apologize to them. They forgave her and invited her to stay with them again until she gets back on her feet.
She is determined to get a job and earn money to pay back the cash she borrowed from their stash when she left. Sara returns to stay at her grandparents’ home as her job has ended, and she hopes to find one near their home so she can get to know them.
She finds Michelle in the barn, stunned and angry that she is there again. Certain Michelle is going to try to get something from them, Sara wants her far away from her grandparents. She refuses to forgive the deception Michelle acted out.
When the Lapps arrive at home, they find their beloved granddaughter Sara talking about leaving, and unable to understand how they could forgive Michelle. Sara is a bitter young woman who feels people have lied to her all their lives.
She is unforgiving, even of her late mother, for keeping her away from her grandparents and her birth father. She won’t even try to get along with Michelle. When in the basement of the house one day, she finds a jar full of scripture verses and quotes that someone has saved.
Curious, she reads a couple, and returns more than once to see what she will find in it. Sara doesn’t believe in God, however, certain that if God exists, He would care about her, listen to her prayers, even answer them.
It takes more than one crisis and a deception of her own, before she is willing to listen hear what Michelle might have to share with her and begin to understand forgiveness. Sara is the primary focus of The Forgiving Jar, even though we do see the continuous changes in Michelle’s life.
Both young women are described well, as are the Lapps. Sara was easy to have empathy for when realizing that I have struggled with some of the same emotions. Mary Ruth and Willis, being faithful people of prayer, continue to bring the situation before the Lord.
It will be like meeting a new person if the writer of scriptures and quotes in the prayer jars is revealed! Forgiving others is a focus for several people in this novel. I have had to look at my own “history” of forgiving others, and how often I think the slate is clean until remembering a person or event.
This delightful yet serious novel is a lesson in many ways. There are twists in the plot, some sweet and some not as sweet, that truly make the story what it is. I highly recommend this to fans of the author and of well-written Amish Christian fiction.
From a grateful heart: I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher and NetGalley, and this is my honest review.