Home for the Heart (The Journals of Corrie Belle Hollister Book #8)

Michael Phillips

Description

The Civil War is finally over, and it has been more than two years since Corrie Belle Hollister left her home and family in Miracle Springs, California, to travel across the country at President Lincoln's invitation. Her writing skills and reporting experience have made their own contribution to the Union's success, and now she is on her way home . . . back to the community where she grew to maturity, back to the family she loves. But Corrie is returning a different young woman than the one who left with her journal tucked into her suitcase and the dream of being a writer tucked into her heart. She feels restless as she tries to settle back into the pace of a small town, and the latest letter from Christopher only creates more questions. Perhaps the most relentless among them: Where will she find a home for her heart?

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 02 janvier 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781493413508
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 1994 by Michael Phillips
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data for the original edition is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-1350-8
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
To Cherokee Louise and John Robert Carter,
the father and mother of my wife, Judy — affectionately known to the many who love them as Bob and Cherry . . .
Know, dear ones, that your daughter, your son -in-law, and your three grandsons all love you and esteem you greatly.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
1. Happy Correspondence
2. Thoughts about Home
3. Reunion
4. Letters
5. Life Again in Miracle Springs
6. Reflections on Loved Ones
7. Dinner with the Rutledges
8. Miracle Springs Community Church
9. A Novel and Surprising Proposition
10. The Same . . . Yet Not the Same
11. The Future Comes Calling Sooner Than Anticipated
12. Mr. Kemble’s Offer
13. What to Do?
14. Talking It Over with Christopher
15. Unexpected Mail and New Questions
16. Mutual Commitment
17. A Quiet Decision
18. Another Journey West
19. A Sad Letter from Chicago
20. The New Dress
21. Disappointment
22. Pleasant Dreams and Apple Pies
23. Christopher!
24. Christopher in Miracle Springs
25. Supper with the Family
26. Walking and Talking Through Town
27. Pa and Christopher
28. Christopher’s First Days
29. The New Corral and Barn
30. Christmas Eve
31. The Most Wonderful Christmas Ever
32. A Cozy Evening
33. Pa’s Decision
34. Pa’s Proposed Partnership
35. The Bunkhouse
36. Our Marriage Journal of Letters
37. The New Mine
38. Summer 1866
39. Into a Brand-New Tizzy
40. The Invitation
41. Marysville
42. Working Through Our First Big Misunderstanding
43. A Ride, Reflections, and More Letters
44. Quartz!
45. Commitment or Emotions
46. Pa’s Answer
47. Another Proposal
48. The Awkwardness of Being “Engaged”
49. The Blue Lace Dress
50. Box of Memories
51. A Quiet Kind of Love
52. The Big Day
53. A Home for the Heart
54. Beginning of the Future
Afterword
About the Author
Fiction by Michael Phillips
Back Ad
Back Cover
Chapter 1 Happy Correspondence

Dear Christopher!
I just finished the letter you gave me through Sister Janette! What a surprise!
The train is still in Pennsylvania somewhere—I haven’t even traveled through one state yet, and already I am writing to you.
As I read your words, you should have seen it—the people in the coach around me looked and stared. I was crying so!
The conductor came up and asked me if I needed help. He was so kind. I told him I was just so happy I couldn’t keep from crying!
And I was!
Christopher, you have made me so very, very happy—happier than ever I think a girl has been. Happier than it seems I deserve.
I know I am babbling on. I feel like such a child! I am crying again just to think of you—I can hardly write the words.
Oh, Christopher, Christopher —just to feel your name on my tongue, and to write it with my pen, feels so wonderful! Christopher, Christopher—I cannot stop! Forgive your Corrie for being a fool just this once!
Oh, Christopher, do you truly mean what you said?!
How can I ask such a question? Man of honor and uprightness and truth that I know you for, how can I doubt a word that might fall from your lips? But I am compelled to ask it. I know you mean it, but I cannot believe it!
Will I really see you in California . . . in Miracle Springs! And will your mission there truly be what you say—to ask my father—
I cannot bring myself even to say it!
I will use your words: husband . . . consent to call you my husband!
Oh, Christopher, must you even ask?
You have made me so happy! That a man such as you would want to live his life with me—such a thing is beyond all the wildest dreams of my fanciful feminine imagination!
I dare not think about the prospect but to make myself crazy for not being able to share with you the wonderful joy I feel at this moment!
Consent? Oh, Christopher, Christopher—don’t you know?
I love you too!
Yes, I will say it for all the world to see and to hear—I love you . . . I love Christopher Braxton!
Do you hear me, world?
Do you hear me, the rest of this train!
I love Christopher Braxton!
And I, too, am yours forever! Corrie Hollister— Your Corrie!
Dear Christopher,
The brief pages I wrote immediately after finishing your letter are already an embarrassment to me. I could not stop the gushing of what I felt inside!
It is now an hour later. The happiness has not gone away, only settled into deeper places in my heart so that now I can write you a little more calmly. I would throw away what I wrote an hour ago if it were not for the fact that—if we are to share life together—I want to withhold nothing of myself from you. I want you to know every tiniest and hidden part of my being—the good and the bad, the calm and thoughtful, as well as the light-hearted and emotional. So I am sending it along with this letter, as a token of just what I said—I am yours forever . . . all of me. Even the embarrassing parts that I might have tried to hide from other people’s eyes before.
I want to be all that God made me to be—as a writer, as a woman, as a wife, as a daughter of God, maybe even as a mother someday, or even a grandmother. If you are to be my husband—there again is that wonderful word, that word I can hardly believe!—then I want you to help me become all that God made me to be. How can you do that if I withhold little parts of myself from the gaze of your wise eyes?
So I will not withhold, even that letter. Here it is. Though I am embarrassed—it is me.
The train is clacking along steadily, and I am calmer now. My fit of crying is over, and the people who were wondering about me earlier have gone back to their newspapers and conversations. I read your letter again, every word from start to finish, and that made me start crying all over again, though I tried to keep it more to myself.
The conductor was just by and told me that we will be in Pittsburgh soon. . . .
After reading your letter—twice now, and I shall probably read it two dozen times before reaching home!—I do not see how I will be able to stand not seeing you for as long as it takes for you to get to California.
I know what you would tell me. You would say, “Corrie, the best things cannot be hastened. Nor does God rush when he purposes to build something of lasting value.”
Is that what you would say?
Oh, Christopher, how I wish I could hear your voice saying it! The words would be so much more eloquent than when they come out of my imagination. But when I put even my words into the memory of your voice, it is almost like hearing you talk to me! In any case, I shall have to satisfy myself with it for now.
“Corrie,” I imagine you saying to me, “the days and weeks we are apart will only deepen our love. In God’s time, you will see my face again, and I yours.”
I know it is true. Even as I write the words, my heart tells me they are true. For so long, all my life, I have imagined that I would never marry. It was so wise of you to know that there were things I had to think and pray about and resolve before I would be able to think clearly about marriage.
I admit that I didn’t understand your silence. I was so afraid to let myself think about you because it seemed that my thoughts were only girlish fancies. Now I see why you were constrained to silence.
You did what you did . . . for me! As difficult as it was at the time, now my heart is full of more than just love for you. I feel such thankfulness too, knowing that you loved me and yet were willing to say goodbye to me and never see me again . . . if that was what God wanted for me. I knew you were a giving man, but that you would do that for me makes me love you all the more.
I know some people could not understand my saying that I know you loved me enough not to have me for your wife, but I understand. And I think I hear your voice saying again to me that you can’t really love something in the way God means love to be unless you are willing to give that thing up—otherwise what you call love is really selfish.
Would you say that, Christopher—that love is always giving, always sacrificing, and that you cannot truly love what you only want to possess? Anyway, even if you wouldn’t say just that, I do know that you love me all the more because you didn’t want me only for your own, but you wanted God’s best for me.
Thank you, thank you! But now I want to be yours too!
The train is pulling into Pittsburgh. I am going to stop for now and put this letter in an envelope so that I can ask the conductor to have it mailed from here. I will keep writing more, but I can’t bear the thought of not being as close to you as I can, and that means sending this to you right away.
I wish I could send myself in this envelope too!
Yours, Corrie
Dear Christopher,
The time is passing so slowly and quickly all at once. As I gaze out the window at the passing countryside of Ohio and now Indiana, it seems we are going ever so slowly and tha