I enjoy reading books authored by Brock and Bodie Thoene. Here’s an excerpt from their book that I’m reading now, Shiloh Autumn, with some great marriage advice for women:
“We could have made it.” Trudy did not meet the old woman’s pitying eyes.
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“Y’all still gonna make it, honey.”
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“The Depression. Even the drought. We might have made it if only . . . He won’t let me near him.”
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“Trudy, honey . . .” The old woman’s voice was thick with compassion. “I seen drought come an’ I seen drought go. Done buried five young’uns in my time. Y’all gots a dry spell, sure, but that happens in life. Not jus’ to a country or a farm, but in folks’ hearts, too. An’ I seen enough t’ know that sooner or later that dry spell gonna break and there be plenty of water.”
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“But for now, Willa Mae . . .”
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“For now? Pray for him. We all gots us a burden t’ bear. Birch has a heavy one, I reckon. An’ you can’t carry it for him. We womens,” she chuckled, “we’s always tryin’ t’ fix ever’thing. Make ever’thing right for our menfolk. For our chillun. We try t’ be like God, jus’ like that ol’ serpent in Eden say we womens would do! But honey, you ain’t God! Lay it down! You cain’t fix what’s hurtin’ in your man. He’s gotta take it to Jesus. Find his own peace. That’s the way of it for ever’ soul. You cain’t do it for ‘im.”
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“Birch is passing his bitterness on to Tom.”
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“Then Tom gonna have t’ deal with it. Reckon in Tom’s young life he gonna have plenty to take t’ Jesus, too. You cain’t do it for Tim, neither.”
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“I see what’s happening to us, and I can’t stop it!”
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“T’ain’t your place t’ fix ever’thing! Pray for your man, Trudy. He gots to find his own way home inside his heart. You jus’ s’posed to love him, an’ pray! It’s the least an’ it’s the most an’ sometime it’s the onliest thing a gal can do.”
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Anger at Birch reared up in Trudy. “But Birch is so . . .” The litany of his every imperfection came to her mind.
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Willa Mae closed her eyes and put her hands as if she would not stand to hear another word. “Let God have His way! He’s the teacher an’ the Father an’ the One that loves your man an’ them chilluns even more than you does. There’s some things we gals cain’t make right!
“The devil whispers worry an’ grief in our ear. He say, ‘If only that man would do this! How come those chilluns don’ listen?’ But you tell that ol’ serpent t’ get on down the road. I say it again . . . Trudy, honey, you ain’t God. No woman is. We might try t’ be, but we ain’t. Tryin’ to be God? That’s the first sin an’ the first lie an’ the terrible burden the first wife and mother carried out of Eden. Now we done inherited that burden, an’ we gots t’ lay it down at the Cross.”
Shiloh Autumn, Bodie and Brock Thoene, pp 236-237.