Redeeming Ruth: Everything Life Takes, Love Restores
Some books are just meant to be read event though they are hard on your heart. I think this book by Meadow Rue Merrill is one of those books. Her book, Redeeming Ruth is beautifully written memoir about faith, hope, love, adoption, courage, special needs, hope, and suffering. And more importantly, about the strength from loving, even the unlovable.
Book Description:
As I’d often told my children, there is nothing of value that may be lost here that will not be given back in heaven. Everything life takes, love restores. Everything. Broken hearts. Broken dreams. No matter how painful. No matter how devastating, God can transform our greatest sorrow into something good. We simply have to keep beating our wings, keep trusting to discover what it will be. In the meantime, he gives us the hope to keep living, Redeeming Ruth.
Winner of a Christopher Award for books that inspire and the 2018 Maine Literary Award for memoir
Redeeming Ruth is the inspirational, true story of an abandoned baby, a devastating diagnosis, and the way God loves broken, hurting people through us even though we too may be hurt and broken.
When Meadow met her, Ruth was a sixteen-month-old child that some church friends were hosting from an orphanage in Uganda. She had cerebral palsy and was so weak she couldn’t lift her head. Meadow had always felt a call to adopt, but was this what God meant?
Part family drama, part travel adventure, and part spiritual memoir, Redeeming Ruth is the heartwarming, against-all-odds story about the most unlikely pairing of a small-town New England family and their adventure in adopting Ruth, an abandoned baby from Uganda. Honest, raw, and illuminating, this book explores what happens when we sacrificially reach out and share God’s love with others.
While the Merrills realized it would be a tough road, they didn’t foresee the challenges and joys that would overwhelm them with hardship, laughter, and a deep and exuberant love–the love of a little girl redeemed.
Author Information:
Meadow Rue Merrill is the Christopher Award-winning author of the memoir, “Redeeming Ruth: Everything Life Takes, Love Restores.” A former journalist, she corresponded for The Boston Globe and contributed articles to Down East magazine, The New York Times and The Boston Sunday Globe Magazine while raising six children. She currently writes inspirational books for children and adults from a little house in the big woods of midcoast Maine, where she lives with her family and a flock of hens. “The Christmas Cradle,” the first in her Lantern Hill Farm children’s picture-book series releases in 2018 with RoseKidz.
My Thoughts:
This book is so inspirational, it is the true story about the life of a little girl that was abandoned because of her medical condition.
Meadow is introduced to Ruth through a group at church that were hosting orphans that had been sent to the States to received medical care. The hope was that some of them would also be adopted by families while being treated. As soon as Meadow and her family meet Ruth, they fall in with her. They start spending more time time with her, and start to learn to care for her needs.
As the story continues, the struggles both financially and those that come with dealing with governments from both countries. I enjoyed seeing how the challenges and heartbreaks only made Meadow’s faith stronger. It would have been so easy for her to just give up and stop the battle. I am so happy she didn’t, but I can’t imagine the pain and suffering she went through on this journey.
From the beginning of the book, it is clear that this is going to be a painful journey. It rips the covers off the hidden grief that comes from loving someone so fully. Each chapter is filled with Meadow’s dreams and memories. When the facts around Ruth’s death are shared, it’s just awful. It was so painful to watch the raw grief that Meadow experienced. The despair, the anger, self blame are feelings we can all relate to and share because they are beyond understanding. Knowing how deep the love in Meadow was for Ruth is a testimony to how strong love is; and an example for all of us.
I recommend this book for those considering adopting and parents of children with special needs.
Redeeming Ruth is available on Amazon in kindle and hardback formats.
Don’t have a Kindle? Grab one for yourself. They are so nice to use for reading. I love my Kindle Fire and my little one uses the e-Reader version (just for reading without the added games and internet options).
Connect with Meadow Rue Merrill on Facebook and Twitter for the latest release announcements and promotions.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher to review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations. I am part of The CWA Review Crew.
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