CATHERINE'S PURSUIT by LENA DOOLEY NELSON(Charisma)

Whenever I write or talk about relationships and this happens on a daily basis, I realize the importance of the subject. Family relationships hit the heart in an especially deep way. Like individuals change throughout the years families change too. Sometimes a family can feel too small, too large or magically just right. Whatever is happening in our families it's definitely got wings to spread to every member whether there is a feeling of being forgotten or feeling unnecessary to the rest of the group.Catherine begins to feel this way in the novel "CATHERINE'S PURSUIT by LENA DOOLEY NELSON. Catherine begins to feel incomplete. "Grief ripped through her. Tears streamed down her cheeks. To find out she had sisters and lose them all within a few minutes. She didn't feel like celebrating her birthday. Insted she wanted to mourn the sisters she lost before she even knew she had them." After her mother's death she finds out from her father that she has two other sisters.She has never seen either sister. Altogether there should be three sisters who know one another as siblings: Cathenine who doesn't want to be called Kate, Mary who will soon marry and Maggie or Margaret who seems to be the sister with the most bitterness and takes the longest to decide whether to meet her father.

Often I think and read about bitterness. Books will tell us there is no place for bitterness. Still, people experience and have very good reason to feel it. The good part in this thing about bitterness is that it can be overcome and love can replace those perplexing, nasty feelings. At least, that's what the Bible teaches and the Psychological experts would tell us and "Catherine's Pursuit" shows us..

These sisters have an interesting and sad beginning in life on the Oregon Trail. Their mother dies leaving their father to care for three baby girls. Unfortunately, his circumstances aren't in a good place. He feels there is no way to care for three baby girls, and he really wants them to lead a good life. He decides to keep the oldest girl, Catherine. He gives the other two girls, Maggie and Mary to caring families. Their father, Mr. McKenna, is a good man. He loves his babies, but through prayer this is the only lighted path he sees for that time.

My o regret about the novel is I wanted to meet the mother before her death. At least, see her and the father experiencing the birth of the girls together. Instead the mother is only a woman we hear about from others in the novel. I have no doubt she was a good mother too. Perhaps the lack of her presence is why this novel took off very slowly for me. A couple times I thought about not finishing it. However, the story began to pick up and remained standing on all ends when Catherine began her pursuit of her sisters. It also seemed to me that she found Mary too quickly. Of course, situations can move quickly when God is involved. Maggie was the workhorse of the story. It's very hard for her to forgive her father as it is for Mary. Both girls feel resentment toward Catherine. The heavy loaded question becomes "why did you keep her and not us?" I thought that was a powerful question and a painful one to live with throughout life: Didn't my father want me? What was wrong with me? Why didn't he search for me? My only other problem is that I wanted to read more about the Oregon Trail The Oregon trail is  a vast part of American History. It seems sad not to go into more detail about that part of our history.

This is a wonderful Christian novel because God is never forgotten but constantly experienced throughout the novel. I could just feel God's Love working everything out for the best including the romances which take place in the novel. Lena Dooley Nelson has written an intricate novel. These life questions involve most people in one way or another. In the end I came away knowing no matter how or why a family is avoided the family is always in the subconscious speaking sublimnal messages or in the forefront of the mind, the conscious. In other words family family plays a big part in how a person makes decisions. Still, this is the part that really interests me and I can't forget. I can't blame my family for whom I choose to become in life. Our minds are good weighing scales where we can put our choices. Then, pick one like Mr. Mckenna and also like Catherine who chose to look for her sisters. Anyway, the family shapes our past present and future, and a family has a far wider purpose than any of  us might realize yet.

In one class I took years ago, the Professor called the family "a system." It wasn't her personal way of talking about the family. Our textbook written by highly profession doctors, etc. called the family a "system.": Indeed, the family is a system full of red tape, psychosis and other words I don't know. I do know its wrapped tightly around us, whether we want it or not, like a cocoon. In the end I do believe through God's Plan in the family all of us will be finished as fine silk.At the very beginning of the novel Lena Dooley Nelson gives a scripture which I don't think she wanted me to take for granted."And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me Indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested." --I chronicles 4:10.

lenanelsondooley 

nps.gov/oreg/historyculture