Customer Reviews

A Time of Hope (Love Inspired #370)

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A temporary pastor in a small town community church finds true love with a cleaning woman. Sounds like a simplistic plot, yet Reed's characters walk off the page and into your heart. Mara is deeply hurt by her parents' untimely deaths and hides behind a facade of anger and loneliness, which Jacob sees through. The son of a popular preacher, he's hoping that he'll eventually become like his grandfather and preach to a large congregation in San Francisco.

The characters are fairly young; Mara is 22, Jacob only 26, yet they appear wise beyond their years. Mara gets a makeover courtesy of Jacob's sister and, probably for the first time, her outer beauty matches her inner beauty. Mara and Jacob develop a real connection based, not on looks, but on shared faith, which is the strongest foundation on which to build a marriage.

I liked the contrast of Jacob's grandfather's big city ministry (evidently modeled on some of the megachurches) and Mara's small community church. I was reminded of Jesus sending out the 70 disciples to preach. They didn't stand in the middle of the city and deliver sermons; they went, in pairs, to people's homes and preached. You can give a sermon on television, but you'll never know if you've reached someone's heart unless you sit down, face-to-face, and talk to them.

Though this book isn't a keeper (hardly any of the category romances are, yet I wish I had kept this one), this was a touching story with engaging characters who really seemed to fall in love, unlike most of the Love Inspireds, where the man and woman find each other attractive, admire about each other, etc., but there is no passion there, whereas Mara and Jacob have a spiritual connection, separate from anything physical. I never really got the impression Mara was much to look at, but Jacob sees past that, to her soul, and is touched by the pain he sees there. Jacob is a wonderful man and Mara feels so unworthy of him, it makes me cry. This has been the only Steeple Hill novel I have read so far that has brought tears to my eyes. I also like the setting, for even though it's on the West Coast, it reminds me of New England in the fall. I don't know why.

I don't remember Jacob's sister's name in this (it's been several months since I've read this book), but she was truly a beautiful person, both outside and in. Though I know unsavory characters are a part our world, sometimes it's nice to read a book where most of the people are good and kind and those who aren't, aren't really so bad after all.

I will say the author is no poetess, for though Mara's poem was fraught with feeling, it could have been more lyrical and just as sad. I think it's better to omit something rather than write it badly, or not as well as it could have been written. I know Mara wasn't a poet laureate in the book, but there was just so much depth to her character, I think the beautifully composed words would have just come naturally.

Recommended reading.