Cover

Half Title Page

Title Page

Dedication

To

Cousin Lois,

with love and gratitude

for sharing this joyful journey.

Epigraph

As for God, his way is perfect. . . .

—Psalm 18:30

Prologue

’Tis a waste of time to look back with regret,” Mammi Eliza Slaubaugh once told me. “Though we might fret and stew, the past simply can’t be changed,” she’d added, leaning closer, as if to share a secret. “Besides, if we could change our past, Anna, would we want to?”

Mammi’s last question so ferhoodled me, I was unable to grasp her meaning. And yet I’d never forgotten her words of wisdom. Truth be told, I was still grappling with that very idea while I picked strawberries with my mother on this exceptionally bright June sixth morning, the one-year anniversary of my breakup with Atley Brenneman, my first beau.

“Do you have any past regrets, Mamm?” I asked as I set my bucket on the ground.

Mamm tilted her blond head and smiled quizzically. “Aren’t ya a bit young to think about regrets, Anna? You’re only twenty.”

I sighed, recalling Atley’s decision to leave our Beachy Amish community to train to become a pilot. Why hadn’t I seen it coming? Atley had done his best to persuade me to leave with him, his arguments sharp as a blade. But with the Lord’s help, I stood firm in my upbringing, despite my deep care for him. Even so, our breakup still brought a sense of what-could-have-been.

Mamm flapped her long apron at a bird eyeing a cluster of ripe strawberries. “Ach, Anna dear, I can tell where that sigh’s coming from. And it’s no wonder: Losing your beau to the world was awful hard on you. One of my regrets is how you had to suffer through all of that.”

I nodded, remembering how, at the time, I’d taken to writing down my prayers as a way to ease my sadness. At day’s end, I would go out to the edge of the woods near our farmhouse and lie in the tall grasses, hoping no one but the critters would notice me there in the fading light. After months of this much-needed solitude, my heart had begun to open to God through His handiwork: the majestic canopy of trees turning red and gold, and the abundance of woodland creatures—red squirrels gathering nuts, deer feeding on underbrush, and birds darting here and there in the rustling branches. And I had known that my heavenly Father was with me, comforting me.

“You feeling all right?” Mamm asked just now, reaching low for more plump red berries.

“Jah, but I do wish I’d never gone out with Atley,” I admitted, aware of the old pain of disappointment as we finished picking the ripe fruit.