Alone on the Oregon Trail by Vanessa Carvo Page A

brought Meredith to her side to help her.
    The two girls had made a sign for him to hang on our gate way up high that read “Loves’ Landing” and written below that was “For Those Who Love the Lord”. It was a beautiful sign and it was made from oak and was very heavy and sturdy, and I knew that oak would hold up through all kinds of weather. The girls had worked hard on the lettering and then we took it to a neighbor who then engraved the lovely words into the wood.
    He then handed it back to the girls and they toiled away at staining and preserving the wood. I don’t believe Grayson could have received anything he would have loved more and watching him as the tears ran down his face, I began to see Grayson for what he truly had proven to be, a man of God who truly loved the Lord and loved his children.
    From that day forward I began falling in love with this wonderful man, hoping that I someday could become a wife worthy of him. It was a turning point for me in my life with my faith in God. Day after day I would read God’s Word and I would begin to pray to Him differently than I had been in a very long time.
    I had grown to realize that I was forgetting all about the Lord in the good times and I was only calling on Him in tragic events. After we presented Grayson his gift, it began to change me as I watched his devotion and love for the Lord.
    I began having daily communication with God and this helped bring me back closer to Him and was certainly the beginning of my heart being healed of bitterness over Nathaniel’s passing.
    What a glorious God we have that He could show me so much mercy and grace until I was ready to let go of the pain I was suffering.
    We all sat down to a remarkable meal that the two girls had prepared for Grayson and I, and I could not believe that they could make such tasty meatloaf. It was covered in a special gravy that Meredith has not shared with me to this day and we had mashed potatoes, fresh garden vegetables, homemade biscuits and slices of Meredith’s baked bread, and they topped us off with blackberry pie for our desert.
    It was a marvelous meal and afterwards they would not allow either of us to help them with cleaning up the mess, so we both took ourselves out to the back porch that Grayson had built special for times like this and we sat and talked of our blessings. We grew very close that day and by the next day, I knew that I was falling in love with Grayson; now that I had already fallen in love with his daughters.
    I did not allow myself to tell him of course and I kept things the way they were, but we did spend more time in sweet conversations.
    That night as I curled up in my bed and listened as the birds were settling into their nests, I could hear the critters in the night as they scurried about getting their families all tucked in. It was truly a blessing to have been given this gift of this family and I began from that day on, thanking God for every day’s blessings.

Chapter Nine
    (Prairie Farms)
    The prairies do not come without their downside as well as their ups. Farming could be one of those downs. Grayson came in one morning and announced that the crops were suffering, not only from not enough rain, but from insects that had been devouring them the last couple months.
    He had tried to keep up with the destruction, but it was taking its toll. I could see the worried look on his face and I knew that it must be fairly serious for his face to look that worried. I asked him if there was anything I could do to help out and he only answered “Just pray, and pray and believe.”
    So, that is what I did. For a few more weeks the crops began to plummet into a downward spiral. It looked like we would lose nearly all the crops and we had begun preparing for great losses. Grayson had been gathering everything he could think of that he could sell and he had also gathered up a great number of hogs and cattle so that he could take them to the market to raise some immediate