Some things just can't be undone

Here are a few thoughts on the last book of Liz Curtis Higgs' trilogy. This post will mainly be about the evolution of my feelings about Rose. Do not read this post unless you don't care about spoilers. You are officially warned :p
I originally titled this post "Whence Came a Prince"- but I believe I have explained things sufficiantly for it to be interesting even to people who havn't read the books.

At the end of the second book, I truely despised Rose. I wished she had died as her friend had. She had reasons to be angry with her sister, obviously- but that's no reason to steal her husband and child and then rub it in by asking terrible questions. And it is also no reason to resort to witchcraft.
Also her motives for wanting a child utterly disgusted me. And her methods, even more.
I was also disgusted by the decision of the church- and it just didn't seem to me to be a realistic course of action. Not really. Two wrongs don't make a right. Sometimes, even if things got the way they are by wrongdoing, the best thing isn't to try and fix them, but leave best alone.
She and Jamie had already been living as husband and wife for a year. They had a child together and were genuinely in love. Everyone had believed, including themselves, that they were rightfully married.

For example, in the Bible, David married Saul's daughter, who was in love with him. But he had to flee from home, for his life was threatened by Saul. He had no choice. And Saul gave her away, certainly against her will, to another man.
Years later, David was king. He had other wives already, but, to prove a point, went to take his first wife back, when she was finally settled with that other man, who obviously loved her. It's a heartbreaking story.

Sometimes situations cannot be restored to how they *should* be.
In the case of the book, "restoring" the situation meant seperating a couple, and making a man marry the sister of the woman he loves, while he doesn't love the sister in question, taking Ian, their child, away from his rightful mother and giving him to an immature 16-year-old. To top it off, Leana had truely repented, and was a woman of faith, walking with God (which the pastor eventually realized), but her sister had nearly died from dabbling in witchcraft (which was a secret she only knew).

Some things just can't be undone. And trying to un-do them just makes the situation worse.

So, back to Whence Came a Prince. In the end, Rose dies after a tragic miscarriage of her twins. She had changed a lot in the book, she had repented, and everything, but I do think that it was the consequence of her past mistakes. She had dabbled in witchcraft to get married, pregnant, and she had cursed her father, stolen from him... I felt sorry for her, because by the end of the book you do, like Jamie and Leana did, forgive her and love her no matter how hard it was to do so. Sometimes even though you get forgiveness you can't undo what's done and have consequences to deal with.

Something that always bothered me in the Bible was the death of David and Bath-Sheba's first child. One of the only innocent parties. And this was after David's repentance.

Another long post, but interesting, I hope. I tried to explain things so that even those who havn't read the books might understand.