The Christian Home Place

Dr. Faith Valentine closed the door to her medicine cabinet with a sigh of satisfaction.  It had taken nearly all day to restock her supplies, but now the chore was over.  Being the only woman doctor around was not the easiest job, but she loved the people out here, just as her late husband had.

She had met Dr. Richard Valentine during the last year of medical school at the Women's Medical College in Philadelphia.  He had been practicing medicine for a few years already, and they just seemed to hit it off.  He began courting her and soon they were married to their parents' delight.  He never treated her as if she was beneath him or inferior; he consulted her on many a case.  She had learned a lot under his instruction, and he had grown more sympathetic, as he had watched her bedside manner.  She had taught him how to listen to what the patient was not saying, and he had taught her most of what he knew about surgery.

Then, after they had practiced medicine alongside one another for two full years, he had told her he felt called to take his medical knowledge out West.  They had prayed a great deal about it, and believing in her husband, Faith had packed their belongings and followed him to the frontier.  At first, she had not been accepted as a physician, and even now, folks were still a bit leery of her, but her husband's obvious confidence in her abilities and the fact that there was more doctoring than one man could do alone, caused the folks of this town to start calling on her nearly as often as they had called on her husband.

Things had sort of smoothed out in to a comfortable rhythm, and Faith had begun thinking things would only get better, when one sunny after noon, her world came crashing down.  She still had nightmares about that day a year ago, knowing that if she had only listened, had only been a better doctor, her husband would have lived.  She had nearly gone out of her mind with grief, and it was so hard doing it all alone, but God had been her stay, and her friends had been there to help cushion some of the hardest blows.  What would have happened to her without the sheriff and his wife, Bill and Shirley Tucker, and Pastor Marks and his wonderful wife, she couldn't say.  All she knew was the towns' folk needing her services, added with the friendship of those wise souls had been just the medicine needed to bring her back to the land of the living.

It had been almost a year, now, since Richard's death, and it was she that they called on, when they needed medical care.  From a child's tummy ache, to a man dying of cancer, she treated them all, and was down right good at her job, if she did say so herself.

Smoothing a hand over the crisp, white sheet that lay over the examination table, she took one more look around the office and smiled.  It was now as neat as a pin.  All she needed now was a sick person to dirty it up.

At that thought, she laughed out loud and left the office in search of the children who had grown way too quiet for her peace of mind.