Mary Rowlandson

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"It was thought, if their corn were cut down, they would starve and die with hunger, and all their corn that could be found, was destroyed, and they driven from that little they had in store, into the woods in the midst of winter; and yet how to admiration did the Lord preserve them for His holy ends, and the destruction of many still amongst the English (pg. 262)!" This sentence stood out to me because it was amazing how true this statement seems to be today. When someone does something wrong, we, as people, want revenge right away. That was the case in the Mary Rowlandson's story. She wanted something to happen to the Indians; she wanted them to pay for all their wrong doings to the English. Instead, they continued to come back from battle boosting and bragging of how well they defeating the English.

"Strangely did the Lord provide for them; that I did not see (all the time I was among them) one man, woman, or child, die with hunger (pg. 262)." This was a highlight statement that Mary reflected upon because even though the Indians weren't wealthy, they knew that everyday they would find food somehow and some way. Mary missed having that comfortably that she became accustomed too before she was captive. Mary became a person that was holding on by her faith, everyday she thought she would die. Her faith is what allowed her to survive the extra day and to gain the strength to go on and beg from wigwag to wigwag for little scraps of food.

Mary couldn't understand how people could be so inhumane and how God could still find a way to provide for them by allowing the means to survive. It was hard for her to see the bigger picture, that maybe God had something else in store for the Indians, in store for their future. "But now our perverse and evil carriages in the sight of

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the Lord, have so offended Him, that instead of turning His hand against them, the Lord feeds and nourishes them up to be a scourge to the whole land (pg. 262)." Mary could not understand how God would let them live to destroy the whole land.

"Before I knew what affliction meant, I was ready sometimes to wish for it. When I lived in prosperity, having the comforts of the world about me, my relations by me, my heart cheerful, and taking little care for anything, and yet seeing many, whom I preferred before myself, under many trials and afflictions, in sickness, weakness, poverty, losses, crosses, and cares of the world, I should be sometimes jealous least I should have my portion in