In her no-holds-barred memoir, Peggy (Pegi) Gould, recounts her four different paths, with four different husbands, on the circuitous journey to spiritual wholeness.
Gould began the chronicle while living on the Oregon Coast, and attending meetings of the local writers group, comprised of aspiring authors from Lincoln City to Tillamook.
The narrative begins in her early 20's with meeting the soon-to-be father of her children, regresses to her early childhood, teen and young adult years, relating feelings of worthlessness and rejection; dating and marrying; the birth of her two children; and her wrong choices and involvement in a cult that propelled her on a downward spiral.
While still married to her first husband, she tells how she waywardly met her second spouse, leaving her first mate and children to travel cross-country with him and the consequences suffered as a result. During this second marriage, she experiences a spiritual transformation. Her new faith is tested and tried to the limit, however, through alcohol abuse, domestic violence, abandonment, and ultimately his death.
Not long thereafter, she enters the third phase of her life when she is introduced to a Native American man. Her account describes the long-distance courtship, travel notes, and troubled marriage. Her descriptive divergence to the Pacific Northwest and the Navajo Nation lends a colorful twist to the tapestry of her life. Before this union’s inevitable demise, a friend enters her world who was to become her fourth husband and lifetime love.
Love, however, was not to come easy. She states that the manuscript began as a catharsis during a time of much mental anguish following the decision to divorce and remarry as a born-again Christian. Gould decided to self-publish because she felt there were others out there who struggle with guilt, bitterness, or other negative emotions, who can't seem to get over the hump, and who may think God has dumped them because of their failures. She felt they might find encouragement in being able to relate with her life experience.
The book is a page-turner that keeps the reader acutely aware of the way God can lead through wrong choices and brokenness. It is a story of survival and rebirth.
The book sells for $10 plus $2.50 S/H.
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