When The Morning Glory Booms by Cynthia Ruchi - Reviewed

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing When The Morning Glory Blooms Abingdon Press (April 1, 2013) by Cynthia Ruchti

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Cynthia writes stories of hope that glows in the dark, merging her love for storytelling with inextinguishable hope for inexpressible hurts.

Cynthia spends her days diving into words, worship, and wonder and celebrating 40 years of marriage, three grown children, and five outrageously adorable grandchildren. One of her greatest joys is helping other writers grow in their craft. To that end, she served as the assistant director and a faculty member of the Quad Cities Christian Writers Conference, has served as worship and devotions staff for the Write-to-Publish conference, and teaches at other conferences as opportunities arise. She speaks to women’s groups, at mother-daughter banquets, and for women’s refresher days and retreats. It is her delight to serve on her church’s worship team. Rather than “busy,” she likes the term “active.”

For 33 years, Cynthia wrote and produced the radio broadcast The Heartbeat of the Home. The scripted radio drama/devotional broadcast aired on as many as 50 radio stations and two cable/digital television stations over the years. Cynthia was the editor of the ministry’s Backyard Friends magazine, a twenty-page, twice annual publication that reached 5,000 homes, churches, and parachurch outreaches.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Becky rocks a baby that rocked her world. Sixty years earlier, with her fiancé Drew in the middle of the Korean Conflict, Ivy throws herself into her work at a nursing home to keep her sanity and provide for the child Drew doesn't know is coming. Ivy cares for Anna, an elderly patient who taxes Ivy's listening ear until the day she suspects Anna's tall tales are not the ramblings of dementia. They're fragments of Anna's disjointed memories of a remarkable life. Finding a faint thread of hope she can't resist tugging, Ivy records Anna's memoir, scribbling furiously after hours to keep up with the woman's emotion-packed, grace-hemmed stories. Is Ivy's answer buried in Anna's past? Becky, Ivy, Anna--three women fight a tangled vine of deception in search of the blossoming simplicity of truth.

My Thoughts:

“Quiet grace speaks louder than noisy blame.”  (p.270)

Oh my! What truth is packed into that statement! Cynthia Rushti’s When the Morning Glory Blooms embodies grace in its purest, and sometimes rarest form.  Taking readers on a journey that spans generations of choices, sacrifices and acts of mercy, she reveals that there is really nothing new under the sun.  Choices, consequences, friendship, family, mercy, grace there is such a beautiful picture of God moving in the lives of this myriad of characters!! It’s like you are watching God paint a picture over time.  The situations aren’t always pretty – correction, they are pretty messy most of the time – but there are moments of joy and beauty that bring such hope to the reader’s heart!

I really don’t want to spoil a moment of this story. This is a book that has to be experienced. Truly. There are so many timeless lessons of truth in this one story that you are really unable to soak it all in at times.  I daresay, for me at least, there is a re-read in my future! I was fascinated that there was such a variety of characters to enjoy.  I was totally amazed at how the different stories ultimately related to one another in very profound ways.  And once again, I was reminded that I serve a very faithful God who loves me in spite of my questions and sometimes uncertain trust in His promises.

This story will make your heart ache. It will make your tears flow. It will make your heart soar with hope! I enthusiastically recommend this book to everyone!!

If you would like to read the first chapter of When The Morning Glory Blooms, go HERE.