AUTHOR: Suzanne Woods Fisher
DATE: 2019
PUBLISHER: Revell
STARS: *****
Detachment had worked well as a life strategy for horse trainer Sam Schrock. Until he met Mollie Graber . . .
New to Stoney Ridge, schoolteacher Mollie has come to town for a fresh start. Aware of how fleeting and fragile life is, she wants to live it boldly and bravely. When Luke Schrock, new to his role as deacon, asks the church to take in foster girls from a group home, she's the first to raise her hand. The power of love, she believes, can pick up the dropped stitches in a child's heart and knit them back together.
Mollie envisions sleepovers and pillow fights. What the 11-year-old twins bring to her home is anything but. Visits from the sheriff at midnight. Phone calls from the school truancy officer. And then the most humiliating moment of all: the girls accuse Mollie of drug addiction.
There's only one thing that breaks through the girls' hard shell--an interest in horses. Reluctantly and skeptically, Sam Schrock gets drawn into Mollie's chaotic life. What he didn't expect was for love to knit together the dropped stitches in his own heart . . . just in time.
I loved this story! Stitches in Time begins with Luke Schrock, the recently reformed ne’er-do-well from Mending Fences, receiving an unwelcome assignment as deacon. His determination to prove himself worthy creates a steep learning curve and tension in his marriage to Izzy (also introduced in Mending Fences).
Izzy’s relationship with her sheep provides the central lessons in this sweet story—beautiful analogies of Jesus as our shepherd.
Newcomer Mollie, eager to live life to the fullest, and shy Sam need these lessons to heal their own pasts, and watching their hesitant relationship develop made me smile.
All four main characters, Mollie, Sam, Izzy and Luke, grow through this novel as they learn to follow the Good Shepherd.
Stitches in Time earns five stars and is recommended. Book was provided by Baker Publishing Group.