Ride Books

A busy, harried career woman is forced to pull her car into a quiet and peaceful veteran's cemetery when she has mechanical trouble. After calling for help, she decides to leave the hot car and sit on a bench beneath a shade tree, overlooking the neat rows of crosses. As she waits impatiently, fiddling with her PDA and laptop computer, she hardly notices an elderly woman who comes from nowhere to sit beside her.The old woman begins a conversation, ignoring the businesswoman?s lack of interest, and then proceeds to tell her?without even asking if she wants to hear it?what turns out to be an amazing story. It is the tale of a young soldier and his journey from an idyllic small-town home to a World War II battlefield on an island in the South Pacific. The soldier writes a long letter every day to the girl back home that he pledged to marry when he returned from the war. He talks of his desire to raise a family and become a minister as they had planned. Then, in a heroic act, the young soldier saves the lives of several of his buddies but, in the process, he is seriously wounded and loses his eyesight. When the young soldier returns home, he is bitter and refuses to marry his sweetheart. He claims he does not want to saddle her with the responsibility of caring for a cripple for the rest of his life, turning his back on her and God. She tries to share with him her outlook on life, her belief that God uses such tragedies to direct us toward achieving greater things in our ride through life, but the soldier refuses to listen and shuts her out of his dark, hopeless world. However, God does have bigger plans for both the soldier and the woman. With the help of some of the men whose lives he saved, the soldier's fiance makes him see God's purpose and that he can not only be a miracle himself but lead others through rough road on life's perilous ride.Then the businesswoman, captivated by the old woman?s story, experiences a miracle in her own life. A final revelation shows the busy executive that her stop at the soldiers? cemetery that day, and her encounter with the old woman and a couple more "angels," were no mere coincidences. The mystery of how these three people and their fates are intertwined will offer hope for those who are hurting or who have loved ones of their own fighting a distant war.The story is a salute to veterans everywhere, regardless the war, and the sacrifice they make for their country. It is also a story of those who are left behind and the sacrifices they make in wartime as well. This theme resonates strongly with what is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places today. But this is primarily the story of a love and faith that even a world war could not kill and of all the good that comes from what appears to be tragedy.

The Warners are a typical family, with the usual rifts and arguments. Each year, they leave home on Christmas Day to spend the holiday week in a time-share condominium in Breckenridge, Colorado. The early-teenaged children, Tim and Julie, are opposed to the idea, preferring to stay home back in Boulder with Xmas gifts and friends, but their workaholic father insists that they spend the rare family time together. However, he is inevitably called back to his demanding business each year and is not even there for the Christmas holiday.Then, on one Christmas, Tim surprises his sister, taking her on an impromptu horseback ride to a mountaintop. There, he shows her an amazing and inspiring display of lights on a distant peak, a scene of mysterious origin that can only be viewed from that one spot and precisely at dusk on Christmas Day.The next year, their father is too busy to even make the trip to the Rocky Mountain condo for Christmas. Even so, the kids can’t wait to take their mother on the yuletide horseback ride up the mountain so they can show her the beautiful light show. She, too, is inspired, and when they return home, she tries once more to convince her husband to put his priorities in the right place, to return to church and spend more time with the family. However, by the next holiday, their marriage is over and so are the rides to the mountain for the Warner family.Tim blames his mother for the breakup of the family and, when he eventually goes away to college, he ends all communication with her. Julie finally takes a Christmas journey of her own, a drive to the West Coast to convince her brother to renew the spirit they found together on that Colorado mountain peak with its mysterious light display.He does return home, and, at the same time, their father has his own epiphany. The next Christmas, the parents renew their vows, remarrying on the mountain just as the lights seem to be burning their brightest for the reunited family.But then a tragic turn brings the two siblings even closer, and a special Christmas gift makes certain their bond will never be dissolved, not by distance, hurt, or even death. A final view of the lights on the mountaintop confirms that the love of a family is the strongest tie of all. And a strange but wondrous twist shows Julie Warner the true meaning of those lights they saw on their rides to the Christmas mountain.This powerful story will resonate with today’s busy families, too involved with their own distractions to experience the beauty of this special season, and offer special meaning to those who have lost someone and miss them most during the holidays. The lesson of those magical lights—that one must be in the right place and have an open heart to know the true meaning of Christmas—will touch readers everywhere. A Christmas Ride is a book about families sharing the miracle of the season and the wondrous display of lights on a snowy Colorado mountaintop is the perfect metaphor for this Christian holiday.