Rachel > Recent Status Updates

“Mabel was angry at the injustice of it - that she should have wanted a baby so dearly and be denied one, and that this young girl should be cursed with one as a burden she might not have the strength to bear.”

“The truth awed her. Not only was the child a miracle, but she was their creation. One does not create a life and then abandon it to the wilderness.”

I love the theme of quiet and solitude in this story. There seem to be different kinds. There’s the peaceful solitude vs. the lonely solitude. There’s the quiet as an absence of joy vs. the plentiful quiet.

I love these lines so much: “It was the quiet that pulled him out of his gloom. A quiet full of presence.”

I’m reading this book during a particularly difficult time in my life, and I think that’s no accident. The first six chapters of this book make me feel seen… like the author just understands what I’ve been through to be able to write about childlessness with such grace, honesty, and subtlety.