Emily T. Wierenga’s A Promise in Pieces reveals how love conquers loss
God mends the most
broken of hearts
Emily T. Wierenga’s
A Promise in Pieces reveals how love
conquers loss
God has a way of piecing together His promises in ways
we would never expect. In her debut novel, A Promise in Pieces (Quilts of Love
series from Abingdon Press/April 15, 2014/ISBN: 9781426758850/$13.99), Emily T. Wierenga presents the
story of two women who met under the worst of circumstances but were able to
turn their grief into healing for those they came into contact with.
After
nursing school, Clara Wilson feels the call of freedom pull her away from both
her small town and the watchful eye of her strict parents. In the midst of
World War II, Clara and her best friend, Eva, see the hurt in the eyes of those
who have already lost loved ones in the war. Hoping to save the lives of more
soldiers, the two join the Army Nurse Corps and soon find themselves in
Normandy.
Once the war is over, Clara must fulfill a dying
soldier’s last wish: convey his love to his young widow, Mattie, by delivering
his last letter with apologies for the missed life they planned to share.
Struggling with her own post-war trauma, Clara doesn’t think she is prepared to
handle the grief of this broken family. After meeting Mattie and receiving a
baby quilt that will never cuddle the soldier’s hoped-for child, Clara vows to
honor the sacrifices that family made.
When Clara returns to her hometown, she settles into
life as a midwife. She wraps each newborn in the gifted quilt and later
stitches the child’s name into the cloth. As each baby is welcomed by the
quilt, Clara begins to wonder whatever happened to Mattie — and if either of
them will ever experience love and a family of her own. Having witnessed so much loss, Clara fears
marriage and motherhood most of all. Little does Clara know what God has in
store for her or the importance of the quilt in the lives of those it touches. Years
later, she will have the opportunity to re-gift the special quilt, carrying
even greater significance than when it was first bestowed.
“I connect with Clara, who is a very broken person,”
says Wierenga. “She’s a pastor’s daughter who, like me, was disillusioned about
religion and desperate to encounter God for herself. I too needed to get away
from home in order to realize that God had been there the whole time. My
relationship with God was restored upon returning home to care for my mum. I’ve
also battled infertility and miscarriage and could relate to Clara’s fear of
loss.”
Wierenga hopes in reading A Promises in Pieces that readers will find the courage to love,
especially if loss and fear have been standing in their way. “God mends the
most broken of hearts and places the lonely in families.”
Readers can join
Wierenga and fellow Quilts of Love authors for a live Facebook author chat in July.
Watch for details on the Quilts of Love Facebook
Page.
About the Quilts of Love Series
The
premise of the Quilts of Love series is that quilts tell stories of
love and loss, hope and faith, tradition and new beginnings. The series focuses
on the women who quilted all of these things into their family history.
Featuring contemporary and historical romances, as well as Amish fiction,
women’s fiction and the occasional light mystery, readers are drawn into the
endearing characters and touched by their stories.
A special
tradition the Quilts of Love authors have instituted with each release is the
donation of a quilt to their chosen charity or individual in need. Emily T.
Wierenga will be giving her quilt to Destiny Villages of Hope—an orphanage
funded by World
Help Organization—which she and her husband are planning to adopt
from. World Help is a ministry focused on meeting people’s physical needs by
providing humanitarian, medical and education assistance, ensuring access to
clean water and attending to their spiritual needs by providing Bibles and
establishing churches in as many communities as possible. Wierenga is a blogger
for World Help and recently traveled with a team to Rwanda and Uganda.
Keep up with the Quilts of Love
series online at:
About the Author
Emily
T. Wierenga is a former editor, ghostwriter, freelance writer
and staff journalist. She was a monthly columnist for The Christian Courier and has written for numerous Christian
publications including Focus on the
Family, In Touch and Today’s Christian Woman. Wierenga is the
author of three previously released non-fiction titles: Save My Children: The Story of a Father's Love, Chasing Silhouettes: How to help a Loved One
Battling an Eating Disorder, and Mom
in the Mirror: Body Image, Beauty and Life After Pregnancy. Her memoir, Atlas Girl: Finding Home in the
Last Place I thought to Look, will
release July 1, 2014. A Promise in Pieces
is her first novel.
In July 2013,
Wierenga wrote a letter on her blog to Kate Middleton on the postpartum body. The post went viral, receiving more
than half a million views in one week, and was shared by Dove. Currently,
Wierenga is a blogger for the World Help Organization.
Wierenga speaks at
women’s retreats, universities, churches and conferences, about her journey
with anorexia nervosa and was one of the keynote speakers at the premiere
Christian eating disorders conference, Hungry for Hope 2013. She serves as an
Official Ambassador for FINDINGbalance and is a Navigator with the National Eating Disorders Association.
Wierenga is wife to a math-teacher husband and mother and
foster mother to four boys. The Wierengas make their home in Neerlandia,
Alberta, Canada.
For
more information about Emily Wierenga and her books, visit her online home at www.emilywierenga.com. She is also active on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.
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