The first words of Liz Flaherty's story broke my heart as Early (Earline) McGrath angrily planted carrots in her garden because her newly divorced husband of a few hours hated carrots. Early felt revenge, not "freedom," over the dissolving of her thirty year marriage to Dr. Nash McGrath; deeply hurt, confusing and exasperating to her. Truthfully, I questioned whether I could continue reading because of relating to her feelings, having experienced the personal pain and rejection of divorce during my past life. The hurtful memories returned fleetingly as God reminded me that he had healed and enabled me to forage on with a "new normal" life. I quickly grew inquisitive and excited over this story as I continued reading. I learned the true heart of Liz Flaherty's writing - that the Holy Spirit was present and active throughout and in her character and story development.
Early was barely sixteen and two months pregnant, with Nash only just graduated from High School when they married. (A similar family issue when our 15 year old became pregnant...I could easily relate as a mother and the child as empathetic feelings surged from my heart)....Excuse the interruption. Ms Flaherty's story taught me a great deal about myself while learning the wisdom instilled in Early's character. Reading this family's story became a remarkable experience.
Divorce between couples married 30 years and over statistically doesn't appear to be high at four to ten per cent. There doesn't appear to be a soft place to fall particularly for the mid to late life divorced woman. Early's marriage was much more like the long marriages of my generation. Liz Flaherty dealt with this predicament as though she had lived through it.
Early and Nash had a cordial relationship that God used to intensify changing direction in all their lives. Liz Flaherty wrote the family through chains and threads of ever connecting stitches that began to appear as a beautiful quilt Early might have made. Quilting was Early's God given talent that became business potential to support her singleness financially as well as offering therapy to other's problems through their own creativity. Many turns of events for every family member brought more tension, excitement; stress, physical and emotional - serious and laughable to this amazing story. I gasped when danger came as a surprise to Early, cried over the tenderness between this divorced pair, and laughed at the amusing family escapades.
Ms Flaherty wove humor, love, hurt, loyalty, sadness, and daily life of family and friends with meandering, inter-weaving, zigzags, through loops and bends to quilt together this story as if laid out in "fat quarters." You don`t know what that term means? Then you must read Liz Flaherty's story of this remarkable family. Ms Flaherty is an astonishing imaginative writer that appears to write truth in life as fiction. God has blessed her with an incredible talent, standing tall among the finest Christian authors of fame to the reading community.
OF POSSIBLE INTEREST TO READERS: The National Quilt Museum located in historic downtown Paducah, Kentucky
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