It is almost Christmas.  The snow is falling deeply and beautifully outside.  Families all over are making plans, buying gifts, decorating trees and homes that smell of gingerbread.  The anticipation clings in the air as it seems the world has taken a united breath and held it… wondering, excitedly, what is next.

Nora Peterson once again feels like she is standing on her last nerve.  She digs the Christmas decorations out of storage wondering when her husband will be home from his latest business trip to participate in what should be a family event.  It looks like once again it will be her and her  17 year old twin children, Christi and Charlie who understand the importance of this tradition.   After all, it is almost Christmas and soon both Christie and Charlie will be off making their own lives.

During this same time, a stranger to the Peterson’s, Jenna Montgomery is trying to stay upbeat  as she makes homemade waffles and plasters a smile on her face for her daughter Heather.  Heather is twenty years old and has suffered almost all her life from a heart defect.  She has been on the donor waiting list for what feels like forever, and time is running out.  As Jenna looks across the room at her daughter, she wonders if this will be their last Christmas together…

At Nora’s home…. A doorbell rings that will change the dynamics of her life forever.   At Jenna’s home, the long anticipated phone call comes…

Will one family’s tragedy become another families answer to prayer? 

In parallel, alternating chapters, One Perfect Day follows the lives of these two women as their story unfolds.  When tragedy strikes the Peterson’s home, the family is left to make a hard decision about organ donation.  The story centers much around this decision being made in the core of intense grief, a decision that can very well save others lives.

Nora’s story is one of battling grief and loss, as well as struggling with the depression that can follow such tragic events.  As she questions everything, her family and her best friend try hard to wrap her in love.  How does one go on after something like this happens?   How does one get up in the morning?  Breath?  Forgive?  Heal?

Jenna’s story follows the miracle side of her daughters new heart.  Sure there are opportunities for heart rejection, but now that this big weight is lifted off their lives and the impending thoughts of “their last Christmas together” seems to disappear and as each day shows improvement and healing… it makes room for something else in Jenna’s life.  Something there was no room for in the fear of losing her daughter….

There is hope. 

The two families never meet and I think that is a brilliant choice by author Lauraine Snelling.  It would have been easy to pull them together in the end and let them see what they have done for each other… both healing in their own sense of the word.  The fact that this is not the case, adds a sense of imbalance as you wonder whether their paths will cross and the result is a good read, without the all too neat ribbon and bow packaging in the end.

I have to admit, I do not read many Christmas related stories due to the overall neatness that seems to be within the pages of such reads.  The overall sugary perfect effect leaves me with nothing to ponder on.  This was not the case in One Perfect Day.  This book left me not only with thoughts on families coping with tragedies the best they know how, but also on the importance of organ donation.

This book is a recommended read this winter as you curl up in a comfy chair and a hot cup of cocoa.  A small, quick read that packs a lot of punch within its pages.

Enjoy!

Lauraine Snelling is a Christian Fiction author who with this book, I have now read for the first time.  She has a wonderful way with character development.  Her story weaves and twists between the two families as smoothly as though she were figure skating. 

 

Amazon Rating

Good Reads

The 2011 WHERE Are You Reading map has been updated to include One Perfect Day

I purchased this book at Book World in Brainerd