My Dinner Guest

 

Some of you messaged me yesterday with recipes and recipe stories, and it was SUCH FUN to hear what you had to say! Thank you for sharing with me and bringing a smile to my face.

            Keeping the food theme going strong, I found a question in my journal book this week that I just absolutely loved. It was: You can invite one fictional character to dinner. They can be from a book, a TV show, or a movie. Who are you inviting? What do you want to ask them?

            Just one? How do I possibly choose? Of course I would want Anne Shirley to come right over in her dress with the puffed sleeves so we could sip raspberry cordial and tell stories about when we were in the depths of despair and how a visit to the Lake of Shining Waters made it all better. Of course.

            But then again, how could I NOT want to meet Marty Davis from Love Comes Softly, especially after I just revisited that family? How could I not want to ask her how her heart persevered through all the challenges she faced in those pioneer days?

            Maybe a little part of me wants to meet mystery-solving Mandie Shaw from the series of books I read as a teenager. How did she manage to find that much mystery in the scope of a few years in the woods of North Carolina?

            Or do I want to meet Damaris, the character who has inspired an entire series of talks I’ve presented at retreats and conferences in the last handful of years? I’d love to know more about her journey to accept her life story.

            So many characters I’ve grown to love. So many conversations I’d want to have with people in the pages of books that I’ve come to hold dear.

            But I can only choose one.

            And I decided to pick someone not on this list at all! I am going to stay with the Love Comes Softly family, but I want to invite Missie (Davis) LaHaye to dinner. In the first book, she’s the little toddler Marty came was asked to raise when she married Clark. And then Missie grew up and married Willie LaHaye and they moved into the wild west to raise their own family. And that would be my question for Missie. How did you hang onto your smile and your faith as you made your way out west – forever – in a wagon train where you only knew your husband? How did you keep going when your friends died in childbirth? How did you make a home from absolutely nothing?

            Her tenacity has always gripped me. She is far stronger in soul than I could ever hope to be. I would want to learn form her in hopes that I could grow (while keeping modern amenities) in my own courage.

            That would be my dinner guest. How about you?