The first time I watched the BBC show Call the Midwife, I fell in love. With the Sisters. With the young midwives. With all the stories. And the more I watched, the more I wanted to read the memoirs that inspired the series, for I had an inkling that the very subtle spiritual threads would be even more visible in Jennifer Worth’s words.
I finally bought the first book. And devoured it. So many of the stories I recognized from the show. And the characters were exactly as portrayed on screen. (Which made me marvel at the acting skill of those women!)
But what thrilled my heart even more were those small hints of a spiritual thread that I’d discerned from TV were quite clear over the course of the pages. I found myself underlining all of the places where the Sisters’ gentle, quite faith influenced Jenny–mostly because their faith matched their actions. Not that the Sisters were perfect. That is quite clear. But Jenny went into Nonnatus House with a feeling that the Sisters’ adherence to faith was old-fashioned and a bit silly. She expected to find hypocrisy. Instead, she found unconditional love. For herself. For the other midwives. For their patients. Which, of course, begged the question to me: Do others see that kind of consistency in my life?
I highly recommend this book (FYI, one chapter is definitely PG-13) and look forward to reading the others. But be warned: you might come away changed.