When Mercy Rains
A Novel
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
She left her Old Order Mennonite commuinty, heavily weighted with secrets. But God reveals all things, in His time. And He redeems them.
Suzanne Zimmerman was only seventeen and pregnant when her shamed mother quietly sent her away from their Old Order Mennonite community in Kansas. With her old home, family, and first love firmly behind her, Suzanne moved to Indiana, became a nurse, and raised a daughter, Alexa, on her own.
Now, nearly twenty years later, an unexpected letter arrives from Kansas. Her brother asks her to bring her nursing abilities home and care for their ailing mother. His request requires that Suzanne face a family that may not have forgiven her and a strict faith community. It also means seeing Paul Aldrich, her first love, again.
Paul, widowed with an eight-year-old son, is relieved to see Suzanne again, giving him the chance to beg her forgiveness for his past indiscretion. But when he meets Alexa, his guilt flickers in the glare of Suzanne’s prolonged secret—one that changes everything.
Suzanne had let go of any expectation for forgiveness long ago. Does she dare hope for mercy–and how will her uncovered past affect the people she loves the most?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Sawyer's first book of a new trilogy (after Through the Deep Waters), we meet the Zimmermans, a large Old Order Mennonite family living in rural Kansas. Teenage Suzanne Zimmerman becomes pregnant and is sent to Indiana to avoid shaming her family, weaving a web of lies and deception that persists for two decades. Nearly 20 years after her forced departure, Suzanne's siblings implore her to return to nurse their widowed, invalid mother. Suzanne's arrival not only stokes new resentment from family members, it opens up long-festering wounds and triggers revelations not everyone is equipped to handle. The presence of Paul Aldrich, Suzanne's widowed high school boyfriend, and his eight-year-old son further complicate matters. Sawyer's characters are multidimensional, struggling with regret and remorse yet still showing compassion and grace. This is a tale of hope, an engaging account of what can happen when even the best-intentioned behavior hurts loved ones and of the power of forgiveness to heal those hurts, no matter how long they have lain unattended.
