Jerry B. Jenkins. Though None Go With Me GT Media. 2006.

I got this story on DVD, and while it's not the blockbuster, big money, box- office hit, it's a redeeming and endearing film. It's the type you might see as a made-for-television movie, or a Hallmark, but I'm not sure if it was ever televised.

Cheryl Ladd plays our heroine, Elizabeth Leroy Bishop, in her later years. The young, impetuous Elizabeth is played by Amy Grabow (Rachel Adair in the General Hospital TV soap).

The story starts when Elizabeth's granddaughter, Lisa (Lindy Newton, The Notebook), pays a visit on her way out of town with her boyfriend, looking for a money handout. Elizabeth insists that the young girl she'd raised at least sit and listen to a story before she flies off with this dubious young man waiting outside in the car.

We're taken then back to the '50s and the Korean War, and Elizabeth as a young beauty herself, feeling "stuck" in smalltown U.S.A. All she wants is to get away and find excitement. That is until her father asks her to drive to the train station and pick up the church's new pastor, Ben Phillips (Brad Rowe, National Treasure). Charming, handsome (should I say "hot"), and definitely spiritual, young Ben and Elizabeth both feel the instant attraction.

And so begins a love story of the ages. Until, that is, Ben goes to war. Elizabeth, as a model '50s patriotic girl-left-behind, works hard helping the cause on the home front, donating her time to helping others, and life goes on. Then her father dies. She'd already lost her mother early on, so this is a hard blow. Here the story becomes increasingly sad and almost unbelievable, and the events that follow land Elizabeth in the arms of another, thinking her beloved Ben has been killed in Korea.

Then, years later, and we see Elizabeth age and suffer yet more heartwrenching pain and a surprise that threatens to tear her life apart all over again.

Still she endures. Her image as an old woman is impressive, having spent her life the only way she knew to survive under God's protection, and having held fast to the faith she learned early on. The story's climactic ending is beautiful and brought tears trailing down my face. It was a "satisfying" and memorable tale.