Catherine Palmer - It Happens Every Spring (The Four Seasons of a Marriage Series #1)

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It Happens Every Spring

Copyright 2006 by Gary Chapman and Catherine Palmer. All rights reserved.

Cover illustration copyright 2006 by Doug Martin. All rights reserved.

Authors photograph by John Capelli/Capelli Photography. All rights reserved.

Designed by Jennifer Ghionzoli

Edited by Kathryn S. Olson

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the authors or publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chapman, Gary D., date.

It happens every spring / Gary Chapman and Catherine Palmer.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4143-1165-4 (pbk.)

ISBN-10: 1-4143-1165-6 (pbk.)

1. Ozarks, Lake of the (Mo.)Fiction. I. Palmer, Catherine, date. II. Title.

PS3603.H367I86 2006

813.6dc22

2006023891

Printed in the United States of America

12 11 10 09 08 07 06

7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

FOR MY HUSBAND, TIM,
with whom I have shared all the seasons and how grateful I am for our summer love!

ALSO FOR CC McCLURE,
beautiful woman, friend, and bookseller. Thank you for urging me to write about the lake.

C.P.

Years later, when they were grown up, they were so used to quarrelling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently.

C.S. LEWIS
The Horse and His Boy

NOTE TO READERS

Theres nothing like a good story! Im excited to be working with Catherine Palmer on a fiction series based on the concepts in my book The Four Seasons of Marriage. You hold in your hands the first book in this series.

My experience, both in my own marriage and in counseling couples for more than thirty years, suggests that marriages are always moving from one season to another. Sometimes we find ourselves in winterdiscouraged, detached, and dissatisfied. Other times we experience springtime, with its openness, hope, and anticipation. On still other occasions we bask in the warmth of summercomfortable, relaxed, enjoying life. And then comes fall with its uncertainty, negligence, and apprehension. The cycle repeats itself many times throughout the life of a marriage, just as the seasons repeat themselves in nature. These concepts are described in The Four Seasons of Marriage, along with seven proven strategies to help couples move away from the unsettledness of fall or the alienation and coldness of winter toward the hopefulness of spring or the warmth and closeness of summer.

Combining what Ive learned in my counseling practice with Catherines excellent writing skills has led to this series of four novels. In the lives of the characters youll meet in these pages, you will see the choices I have observed people making over and over again through the years, the value of caring friends and neighbors, and the hope of marriages moving to a new and more pleasant season.

In It Happens Every Spring and the stories that will follow it, you will meet newlyweds, blended families, couples who are deep in the throes of empty-nest adjustment, and senior couples. Our hope is that you will see yourself or someone you know in these characters. If you are hurting, this book can give you hopeand some ideas for making things better. Be sure to check out the discussion questions at the end of the book for further ideas.

And whatever season youre in, I know youll enjoy the people and the stories in Deepwater Cove.

Gary D. Chapman, PhD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

One evening after a book-signing event, I was sitting at a restaurant with CC McClure, manager of Downtown Book and Toy in Jefferson City, Missouri. After I had related several stories about my life in a small community on the Lake of the Ozarks, she suddenly stopped me and asked, Why arent you writing about the lake? Well, because I hadnt thought of itand I probably never would have if CC hadnt suggested the idea. In fact, I might have forgotten all about it, but a few weeks later, a note came from CC again urging me to write about the lake. So, dear friend, heres your book. And thank you so very much!

Through the process of writing It Happens Every Spring, many people encouraged and supported me. On a summer afternoon in Denver, the Lord led Dr. Gary Chapmana complete stranger to me at the timeright into my path on a crowded conference-room floor and cleared the way for us to discuss the idea of partnering on a writing project. Thank you, Gary, for embracing the vision that your God-given concept of The Four Seasons of Marriage and the seven strategies for healing broken marriages could come alive through fiction. What a joy it is to partner with you in this project!

Ron Beers and Karen Watson of Tyndale House Publishers first had the foresight to pair a nonfiction author with a novelist. I am so grateful for your hard work in taking this fiction series from concept to reality. Kathy Olson, my amazing editor, is a gift from God. I can write with confidence, knowing she will help shape my words into a story worth reading. Mydeep thanks to everyone at Tyndale: marketing, sales team, public relations, warehouse, and all who partner with me in this ministry.

My family provides the cocoon in which I feel safe to dream, plot, and write. Thank you, Tim, for nearly thirty years of marriage. How grateful I am that your careful pen edits each word of my manuscript before it goes into the mail. Bless you for taking on so many responsibilities at home so that I can be free to work. Geoffrey and Andrei, I am so proud of my two sonsheavenly miracles, both of you. I love you all so much.

Catherine Palmer

T he night lightning struck a power pole on the west side of Lake of the Ozarks, Patsy Pringle knew right away there would be trouble in Deepwater Cove. The sizzling bolt of brilliant radiance brought a deafening clap of thunder and knocked out the electricity in all of the neighborhoods twenty-three houses. Lightbulbs blinked off, computers fried, televisions died, and dogs scooted on their bellies to hide under beds.

Up the road from the cove, at the Just As I Am beauty salon in the little town of Tranquility, Missouri, the blow-dryer in Patsys hand whined down to nothing, bringing Esther Moores weekly set-and-style appointment to a sudden end.

Well, Ill be, Patsy said. Good thing you were my last appointment of the day. Im going to have to shut her down.

Nuts, Esther muttered as she patted her damp hair. Id better head home and rescue Charlie. My husband couldnt find a candle with a search warrant.