October Joy (Moments in Paradise 1)
“her dad said. She was still crying and seemed inconsolable, like her dad had mentioned her being in Iowa. “You’re safe here with me. With us. I’ll take care of you.”Her dad asked her to get some tissue and a glass of water, and Grace went to get them. She met Tabitha in the hall, and Tabby asked what was going on.“Sarah’s upset.”“About what?”“I don’t know.”When she returned with the tissue and water, she set them on the coffee table and sat beside Tabby where she was now holding Sarah alon...g with Dad. Sarah’s mournful spirit reminded her of how she felt five years ago when she lost her mother, and she had to fight to keep from bursting into tears herself.Sarah’s cries quieted slowly until she was completely silent.“Are you okay, Sarah?” Tabby asked.“Yes,” she whispered. “Thank you.”Grace felt like they should go now, and she pulled Tabby away. They left the room, but she heard about it later when her dad came downstairs after Sarah went to bed. James had left, but she and Tabby were still up.He told them he didn’t know a lot of the details, but several women had hurt Sarah deeply over the course of twenty-five years in three different churches. They had abused her emotionally with their critical comments, judgmental attitudes toward her as a pastor’s wife, and even turning Levi against her at times by going to him and getting things done their way after she had told them otherwise. Levi hadn’t known about it, and she never told him. She told him things women had said or done occasionally, but he always brushed it aside as part of the territory. He knew how to handle people like that and not let it affect him, but she didn’t.As the years had gone by, she had been less and less open with women and didn’t seek out friendships with them because she’d been taken advantage of too many times. But then she had been hurt in another way by women who told her she wasn’t social enough and doing enough to support the women in her church. If she did things, she got criticized for what she did, and if she didn’t, then she was criticized for that.“Did Mom feel that way?”MoreLess
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