Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Missie LaHaye is the school teacher and Willie LaHaye is offered the job of sheriff. Clark Davis arrives to visit his daughter Missie. Her daughter Kathy dies. Missie is lost and leaves her job. With the struggling ranch, Willie takes the sheriff job working for ruthless land baron Mayor Sam Doros. His daughter Colette Doros takes a liking to the LaHaye's adopted son Jeff despite her father's disapproval. The LaHayes struggle to overcome their grief. Doros holds a loan on LaHaye friends, the Klines (James Tupper, Brianna Brown) and threatens to evict them.It's the fourth in the Love series. It's a fair continuation of this TV movie series. The lost offers this movie the opportunity for some great acting possibilities. However, it never elevates beyond its TV movie DNA. The young love of Graham Phillips and Mae Whitman is good. It's a fine foil to the somber tone of the LaHayes. Sam Doros is a good villain but it would be better to get a bigger actor. This works for the most part as a TV movie.

Seldom seen such a boring, ragged movie. The actors mostly to young and not a bit convincing. The annoying music is way to much foreground. And the plot? Well, could have been interesting. Not this way. I was really disappointed. the only one main character in this entire movie that appeared convincing to me was John Laughlin. People aren't like liquid soap in real life. Especially in hard western times, as I suppose. They had a hard life full of hard work and there's nothing that turns the characters into believable farmers 200 years ago. I know, they focused on abiding joy of love. However, to make it the one dominating emotion, you must also show the opposite to work it out. And there's nothing like this here.

As a Southern Baptist, it pains me that I must give a below average rating to an overtly Christian movie. There certainly aren't so many that I want to discourage film-makers from a genre that's woefully under-exploited. Still, I must honestly say that "Love's Abiding Joy" is a typically low budget, low key, self-consciously Christian film. The plot is predictable, the acting mediocre (I'm being kind), and the editing atrocious. As a TV movie it might have been slightly above average, but as a feature film it leaves much to be desired. Keep trying guys. You've got to have a movie about about real Christians inside you somewhere. Might I suggest you turn to G. K. Chesterton or C. S. Lewis for some inspiration?

I got to go to a pre-release screening of "Love's Abiding Joy." I've read all of the books in the series and I have seen the other three movies, so I was excited when I was invited to go see it.The story was really, really different from the book. I was expecting it to follow the book, but that was disappointing. There were a bunch of stories intermixed about Missy, Willy and their adopted son Jeff.The acting was pretty good. Personally I liked January Jones better as Missy than the girl that plays her in this one and in Love's Long Journey. I was really glad that Logan Bartholomew returned as Willy- I know that a lot of people were worried that he wouldn't come back.The music was a little better. A lot of the same themes as the other three movies, but there was a new theme that I liked a lot.I hope that the next four movies (if they make them) follow the story better than this one did.Overall this was okay. I did get kind of bored, and it was really sad.