Category Archives: Fiction

The service closes with an offer of prayer for anyone who has been “challenged by anything in tonight’s service”. There will be people available at the side of the church, they say, for anyone interested. Alana looks at Peter, asking with her eyes if they should go forward. Peter hesitates, but Alana nods reassuringly andContinue reading “The Gift (Day Fifteen)”

Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The LORD has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. Who, Alana wonders, are her enemies? She can often see them clearly in her mind’s eye: those whose faces and voices sheContinue reading “The Gift (Day Fourteen)”

“Lift up your hearts.” “We lift them to the Lord.” “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.” “It is right to give our thanks and praise.” Standing, they face the front of the church where three Advent candles flicker in their wreath beside the two still unlit ones. The voices rise around them.Continue reading “The Gift: Third Candle (Day Thirteen)”

One day he had come into the living room to find Alana crying. She had been on the phone to her mother and something had been said to shake her equilibrium, words said perhaps with the best of intentions but with the worst of consequences. At first Peter had tried, as he so often did,Continue reading “The Gift (Day Twelve)”

Alana is dreaming. It is daytime – noon, it seems, for the sun is high in the sky and blazing brightly – and she has walked outside of their house and is wandering in a strange wilderness outside which, though she cannot recall ever seeing it before, seems not altogether foreign to her. The groundContinue reading “The Gift (Day Eleven)”

Staying behind in the living room, Peter’s eyes skim the pages of the children’s Bible but in his head he is replaying every second of the conversation, his mind freezing over key moments, pausing, replaying, examining the scene from every angle he can find. At several points he thinks to get up and check onContinue reading “The Gift (Day Ten)”

The Story of Hannah and Samuel There was once a man named Elkanah who had two wives. Their names were Hannah and Peninnah. Elkanah loved Hannah more than Penninah, because she was a kinder person and her conversation was more engaging than Peninnah’s who, as her name implies, was a bit of a ditz. (“HowContinue reading “The Gift (Day Nine)”

Slowly the story returns to him. Hannah was the second wife of Elkanah, and unable to have children when Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah, had already given him several children. Elkanah loved Hannah more than Peninnah, however, and whenever they went to the temple to offer their sacrifices he gave Hannah an extra helping of theContinue reading “The Gift (Day Eight)”

Peter and Alana have spent the day shopping for Christmas presents. The task is always a challenging one. Peter’s family is small and easily pleased but Alana’s is another matter. She has two brothers and one sister, and they have their respective partners and families to shop for. This year her oldest brother Simon, theContinue reading “The Gift: Second Candle (Day Seven)”

The neighbours were all ready to hurl their puddings and their dishes right in the mother’s face, only they were interrupted by a small, unobtrusive family who appeared in amongst the crowd and started to speak, quietly at first but with a quality in their voices that made everyone else stop and listen. It wasContinue reading “The Gift (Day Six)”