John Bunyan: "[We can use metaphor and allegory to] make truth's golden beams cast forth its rays as light as day."

Tim Keller: "Parts of Biblical truth can often be found--sometimes expressed beautifully and clearly--right alongside of the trivial or the false in the cultural products of the world." (from forward to The Stories We Tell)

John Eldredge: "The best stories of all...bring us the Eternal Truths and take the the form of...myths."

Lindskoog and Hunsicker: "A fantasy that keeps faith with the reader leaves the promise of growing up to be a beautiful swan, of having cinders and shame replaced by royal splendor, and even of having beastliness tamed and transformed by love."

Tolkien: "[Fairy tales help us] stand outside of Time itself, maybe."

Ecclesiastes 3:11 "Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end."

Lloyd Alexander: "Fantasy touches our deepest feelings and in so doing, it speaks to the best and most beautiful parts of ourselves."

Matthew 13:10-13 And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given...Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

John Eldredge: "When you tell a story, you speak to the heart."

I have been a passionate lover of all things faerie and fiction for my whole life. Even before I could read, I couldn't get enough of my parents reading to me. I can remember snuggling on the couch with my Bible when I was three or four years old and spending long enough for my parents to notice me studying the words and letters on the page. When my mom asked me where I was in my reading, I pointed to an indecipherable group of letters. When she asked me what it said, I replied, "Well, I haven't gotten to that word yet." It wasn't long before my mom and my kindergarten teacher were having to conference to give me more reading work so that I wouldn't disrupt the class.
When I was able to decipher those words and read the beauty behind them, I became what could only be called a voracious reader. I remember clearly picturing heaven as a bean bag chair amidst piles of books that stretched on into eternity. My picture of heaven now is much more full of Jesus, but books will be there, I am sure!
After that information, it will be no surprise to you that reading and fiction play a big part in my life and in my faith. I am not at all alone in thinking that the myth is important in understanding our God. Many of the great and the small theologians have spoken of its importance. Their words give voice to a cry of my own heart.
In the "Message to Parents and Teachers" at the end of Faerie Gold, Treasures from the Lands of Enchantment, Kathryn Lindskoog and Ranelda Mack Hunsicker do an excellent job at defending the reading of fantasy fiction. They explain seven different benefits, one of which is "[Fairy Tales] carry readers beyond the restrictions of time and space and promote a sense of mystery and transcendence." This is beyond the moral and relational benefits of reading stories--this is touching on something that nothing else can give us. When we read fiction, our minds are stretched towards what they will hold in heaven. We cannot imagine what we will see and experience when we are face to face with our Lord, but we get a bit closer when we read fantasy.
John Eldredge, in Waking the Dead, his book about living life fully alive for the Lord, expounds even more on the myth. He says that the best stories reveal Christ and teach us how to live as Christians. These truths are Biblical but hard to remember in our daily lives:

1. there is more to life than what we see,

2. there is a battle raging around us, and

3. we have an important part to play in that battle.

This is why I love Lord of the Rings, the Wingfeather Saga, the Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, the Percy Jackson books, and on and on. I believe wholeheartedly that the Bible teaches we are saved solely by grace for the purpose of enjoying God and giving our lives away for His Kingdom. I am often more motivated in this purpose when I am reading or thinking of the heroes of great works of fiction.
A lot of our fantasy comes to us today in the form of movies and tv shows, and there is much to be gained from that as well. The Stories We Tell by Mike Cosper is a book that delves into some of these same topics as they relate to popular shows and movies. He talks about how movies, tv, and the books behind them reveal truth about ourselves, culture, the gospel, and our God.
Fiction is only this powerful and this important insomuch as it helps us to understand the truths of the Bible; however, it has great power to do that. I leave you with a quote from the great Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey about novels that always makes me laugh. She begins with a bit of sarcasm,

‘I am no novel-reader — I seldom look into novels — Do not imagine that I often read novels — It is really very well for a novel.’ Such is the common cant. ‘And what are you reading, Miss — ?’ ‘Oh! It is only a novel!’ replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. ‘It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda;’ or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”

Let us apply this genius also to our faith, letting it encourage, motivate, enliven, and invigorate (but never change!) the Biblical truths we hold most dear.

Resources:
Waking the Dead John Eldredge
Faerie Gold Kathryn Lindskoog and Ranelda Mack Hunsicker
The Stories We Tell Mike Cosper
redeemedreader.com

Northanger Abbey Jane Austen

He could have easily, rightly, 
Righteously called Himself Might:
Bewildering Fearful Power,
Complex Intricate Creativity,
Unimaginable Magnitude.
(Fall to His metaphorical feet;
Scream your befitting fear!)

Instead, He crawled down into
Our tiny traditional idioms,
Like a Dad making silly faces 
In front of his helpless infant.

He named Himself “a Momma’s womb,”
An undeserved bear hug,
Called himself patient, long nosed,
Like your Great Aunt Myrtle
Who just smiled and got out a broom
When you shattered her favorite teacup. 

He is a Captain sailing 
Boundless seas of rare alluring love;
He’s the Rock where the ship moors, 
Sturdy, faithful, and true. 
He’s a thousand guards
Devotedly watching over you
While you sleep.

He is carrying all your consequences,
Burning all your mutinous missives,
Himself becoming your purity,
Using His own elbow grease
To make you squeaky clean, yet
Somehow still numbering,
Properly punishing, putting right
All that in the world is wrong. 

“And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.’” Ex. 34:6-7

It is important to know the names God called Himself, and if we really think about it, we should be humbled that these are the names—the adjectives—He chose. Let us not forget as well that He lovingly hid Moses in the rock (“and that Rock was Christ” 1 Cor. 10:4—I’m taking liberty with context, but it still applies!) before He spoke these powerful words to name Himself.

Studying the Hebrew shows us that He did indeed use Hebrew metaphors like a word that means both “compassion/mercy” and “womb” and other words that literally mean “long nosed” for “longsuffering.”

Praise the Lord.

Whenever I’ve had those bursts of temper that often attach themselves to those of that particular chromaticity, in my head I’ve always justified myself with, “Well, I had a red-haired Granny.” She was all that came with the hue and more, a southern lady with perfect lipstick and coiffure, a gun handy by the front door to shoot feral dogs, and the ability to create magic in the kitchen.

When I was very young and my parents would travel, I had the privilege of not being a boring car rider but climbing aboard the much envied large yellow bus. It would deliver me right to my Granny’s front door, something impossible for those of us who lived on the far outskirts of my Alabama county. Or even better, my magical yellow chariot would carry me to my Granny’s restaurant in the middle of our small town. On those days she would offer me fried or barbecued chicken from the kitchen, scooped ice cream from a glass freezer container, or even bubble gum cigars from a stand near the checkout counter. I would sit at a booth and watch her wipe counters, serve customers, or give advice while I ate the day’s treat and pretended to do homework. I know everything from that time is tinged with the wonder of youth, but I also know, down to my southern bones, that my Granny built up people’s spirits when they entered that sliver of a diner. She fed souls.

When the school bus dropped me off at the old yellow homestead, rolled over the road on logs so many years ago, that place inhabited by northern troops who stole my great-great aunt’s chickens during a certain war, my Granny would be waiting with a thick slab of white bread covered in a thicker slab of melted cheddar cheese, a ripe apple, or a boiled egg. She served simple foods as snacks, but again, when I look back, it’s not the taste of the food I remember at all: it’s her eyes, crinkled on the side with a smile, as she lovingly plated my snack and set it before me. I knew I mattered when she served me food, no matter if it came from a microwave or the stove in the added-on lean-to of a kitchen. After the food I could play with one of the three toys my Granny kept around for us cousins, a bouncy ride-on horse, a play guitar, or a Waterful Ring-toss game that occupied us for more hours than our Nintendos at home. Perhaps Granny would blow up a balloon or take me to the store for a handful of Tootsie Rolls.

The real treat was when the phone would ring on a Saturday afternoon, and I would hear, “Oh, great! We’ll be right there!” I don’t remember our family functions being planned at all; instead, Granny would make a big pot of chili, call everyone, and we would all obediently show up. All the aunts and uncles and cousins would scoop the thick bean-filled nectar into deep bowls already filled with chunks of sharp cheddar. There was always perfectly moist cornbread to go with it, baked in a well-seasoned cast iron that my Grandaddy made special for his bride at the iron foundry. “She couldn’t lift the filled pan from the oven because it was too heavy,” I remember him telling us one day as he held up the large pan, red cheeks shining proudly. “So I added a handle for her on the other side. All the men in the foundry thought it was a good idea, so they made them for their wives too.” That would have been about the longest sentence I heard Grandaddy utter while Granny was alive. She did the talking for both of them, and it suited Grandaddy just fine.

Sometimes the meal was fried chicken, perfectly battered, perfectly crispy, deep fried in the enormous pots Granny kept from when she ran the restaurant. She’d serve homemade thick and creamy mac and cheese, sliced tomato wedges, and green onions on the side. The TV was usually on for football, and the cousins would sit around a table decked with a lacy, doily-like table cloth that Granny had crocheted herself, stiff with starch and white with a hundred washes. She set the table with the best when she was serving up love to her family.

Before holidays Granny would cook for weeks, stocking up the freezer with every single one of our favorite desserts. She knew that mine was chocolate drop cookies and my dad’s was pecan pie. She knew that my cousin Greg preferred banana pudding, and my Aunt Gayla liked golden blondies the best. We never ran out because she could just say, “Go get another one from the deep freeze!” My dad has told me that while he was growing up, dirt poor and with an outdoor bathroom, Granny never spent a dime all year long. She kept them in a jar. She would laugh about not spending a dime, and then she would feed her children, and anyone else’s children too, like kings and queens on Christmas. Even after she had enough money to stop saving dimes, I remember that jar on the window sill in the kitchen. She loved to pile every surface of the house with shiny fruits, crackable nuts, and fancy jars of candies on holidays. She still licked her chicken bones dry and sucked out the marrow, remembering her own childhood when there wasn’t enough to eat, but she spoiled every person who stepped through her door.

In my memory Granny’s body was tall and frail but her zeal for her people more than made up for her weakness. She didn’t stop to eat until everyone else’s plates were piled high. She would curl her bare feet up beside her in her rocker, take her lightly piled plate, and nibble a bit, mostly just watching all of us enjoy. It was food enough for her to serve and finish the work for us. When I was younger, Granny’s constant companion was a smoking cigarette, always kept away from us children, always kept away from the food she cooked and served. She and Grandaddy both smoked since they were eleven; it was just something you did back then. When Granny’s doctor told her that she would die the next day if she didn’t put down her cigarette and never pick up another, she said, “I can’t quit unless Willard does.” My grandaddy set down the cigarette he was smoking and never picked up another. Granny quit smoking too, and we got to enjoy her cooking for another fifteen years.

As the emphysema took her lungs, she was more and more confined to her bed. My cousins and I would take turns coming on Saturdays and after school to clean and make her meals. She would call instructions from the bedroom around her oxygen machine, “Make sure that banana is all the way black; that’s the only way I like it!” “Did you remember to turn off the oven?” We didn’t mind; her fretting was reminiscent of her food; she fed us even sick from bed. Once I prayed that Granny would be well enough to cook again. The next time she went to the doctor, he prescribed that she get back in the kitchen. I think he could see that not serving us food was killing her just as quickly as the lung disease. She would pull a stool to the counter and mix up the ingredients slowly and laboriously, but her face beamed under her curled red hair as we awaited the food eagerly. It wasn’t pretense: her food filled and equipped us for life.

The only time I ever saw Granny’s hair not fixed was once when she was in the hospital. She tried desperately to keep us all out of the room because she hadn’t been able to keep them from messing up her hair. Her weekly hair visits and sleeping on a tube of a pillow to keep her hair just so for the whole week were just part of who she was. Instead, we all sat in the hallway right outside her hospital door and prayed and talked. Her children were grown with children of their own, but they knew the need of their mother with a sharpness that overcame any discomfort. There was love even there, in the halls of a too-sanitary place, so lacking in the smells of sweet baking and salty grease.

I was a junior in high school when Granny left us. I was so sure of my theology and of Granny’s eternal future that at the time I inwardly scorned all the mourning that was happening around me. Sure, I was going to miss her, but wasn’t she healthy now? Wasn’t she singing and happy, frying thousands of chicken pieces for the feast at the end of the age? Weren’t we going to see her again? I was young and didn’t understand the heartbreak. I understand it better now.

A tightness in my chest and tears at the corners of my eyes come when I think about the empty spot at my wedding, my babies that she never got to hold, how she would have loved it that I host Thanksgivings and Christmases for my whole family. Tears come quickly when I think how she would have cherished visiting this big house that I’ve filled with kids and laughter and food smells. Ugly crying comes about the time when I miss that sigh she gave when I couldn’t find that recipe again, and I would suffer a lot of agony just to be able to pick up the phone and call her to have her tell me again how long to boil the chocolate for drop cookies.

My grandaddy is 96 now and just now starting to slow down. My extended family still gets together at his house for Christmas, packing in cousins and their children and grandchildren. We put plastic up around the screened in porch and sometimes when it’s warm enough, we put tables on the carport for the more than sixty people that stuff into that small house. We still set the food up in the kitchen that only has one entrance. We’re a close family; we are champions at elbowing our way around with plates piled high.

On July fourth, you’ll find all the men in the family gathered around a screened pit, slowly turning chicken quarters and painting them with Grandaddy’s homemade barbecue sauce, the recipe known only to Grandaddy and a few of the cousins. My aunts will be moving around in the small kitchen preparing all the fixings, Granny’s recipe of stuffing at Thanksgiving, Granny’s yellow cake with chocolate pour icing on Labor Day. My husband likes to point out that whenever we go to Grandaddy’s there’s sure to be someone we’ve never seen before. My aunt will invite a family from church who doesn’t have anyone to celebrate with, one of my cousins will have gotten married, or someone will have had a new little baby. We all have Granny’s blood running through our veins—the inclination that led her to take in and raise her nieces and nephews when her siblings had hard times. In a way, her ghost is there every time we say grace before a meal, her green eyes shining at the family she built, the family she fed into being with her strength and love.

“A Word” and “Witness” Vessels of Light Summer 2026 Issue (pages 13 and 85) This one is fun because it looks like a book on the screen, best viewed on a larger computer and enjoyed slowly to the background classical music provided.

“How to Breathe,” “Ode to Indian Pink,” “Great Faithfulness,” “What Is It,” “Buddy,” and “New Habits” on Hopewords Summer Literary Journal 2026 —This one does require a (low cost) membership. If you’re not a member, here’s one of the poems as a teaser.

“Ode to Indian Pink”

Trumpeting vibrant in red
When the rest of the world
Spreads late spring green,
You shine in the dappled light,
Striking your contrast boldly.
Turning rich soil to nectar blossoms,
When most of the hectic world
Scares our disproportionate power,
You attract our hummingbird hearts
Feeding our enormous forked need.

I would be most grateful if you would go back and re-read “Praying for My Son” on Her View From Home, June 2026. Forward it on to any friends who need to pray for wayward or seeking children!

As always,

Thanks for walking in words with me.

—Olivia

He lifted familiar eyes to her, and she handed him the bag of food she usually brought with her now when she went out. He snatched it as one in a dream, a disappointed hint to his eyebrows. “God bless you,” he responded in monotone. Her throat clenched, and she pulled breath in, raising her chin to keep in the sobs. “Beloved!” She croaked. His eyes cleared then for only a millisecond, but it was enough to keep her wandering the streets for him in every free moment she could take from her sewing.

Back in the apartment, she settled in the chair again and picked up the fabric that would become dress slacks for a shopkeeper. She bravely hummed a few bars of encouragement to herself and then sighed as the tears dripped slowly behind her stitches.

Hours later a knock came. She gasped, shuffling her sewing to the side and rushing to open the door. Could it be…?

The door squeaked open, and she gulped to hide her disappointment, shoulders slumped and eyes filled. “Momma, thank you.” Her mother brought in a small bag of supplies. Her daughter did not eat much, and she suspected that she would not eat at all without these weekly bags. “Daughter, there is room for you…”

“I know, Momma, but I must stay.” She squared her shoulders, walked back to the table, and smoothed the table runner she was sewing. The commission for ten of these for a banquet would pay almost half of her rent this month, and she must keep the room because her husband would expect her there when he came back.

“Love, I know you still care for him, but…”

Again the daughter interrupted. “Momma, I know he will come home.” They talked of other trivial matters then, the mother conceding to the daughter’s stubbornness.

The conversation was repeated many times.

The second time she found him, he was bowed under the weight of his choices, limping along, ten blocks from their apartment. He had not gone far from their place, and she imagined that this meant he still remembered, still loved, still felt. The look in his face chilled her, though, when she tried to hand him the bag. He swatted at her wrist. “Don’t come here again, Lady,” he spoke roughly. She jerked from the grimy hands, the matted hair, the strong smell of drink and urine, and she saw those eyes that once held only tenderness note her discomfort gleefully.

He saw her jump, saw her pull back, saw her distaste for what he had become as the demons whispered noisily and swarmed around him. She obviously didn’t care for him. He was disgusting to her; she only came here to gloat. He greedily turned from her shining eyes and reached down into the bag. No cash! He dumped the sandwich and bottle of water to the ground disdainfully, and peered over his shoulder at her retreating form. Who did she think she was anyway?

Leaving the sandwich, he took the bottle and sipped it begrudgingly. No one cared for the truly needy in this city; look at those fancy cars driving past. Those people had no idea what it meant to be so hungry. He wandered until nightfall, then finding himself in a graveyard, he huddled, hungry and so terribly thirsty, beside a stone. Pulling his coat closed around him, he slept.

Somehow the water bottle had magically become something much stronger by morning, and the buzzing demons seemed to whisper as one choir, “See what we do for you? See how we care?” He sat by the gravestone as one dead to society, dead to the mundane pull of life, and watched the trains come and go beside the cemetery. Each hour they trundled by; it was all so meaningless. “Yes,” purred the chorus in his mind, “meaningless!” He stood and walked as if led toward the tracks. It was 1:59. He stepped onto the tracks, and turned toward the north. He heard the sound, felt it in the tracks on his feet, though the buildings around the graveyard hid the oncoming train. His mind cleared just briefly, and he saw the sleeping angel in the moonlight. Perhaps if he could go with that one pure thought…? But the swarm inside him quickly pulled him toward the jerk of her hand away from him, and the bitterness rooted his feet, standing up more proudly than he had done in all of his weeks on the streets. Society had chased him here; she had forced him here; God did not care…The train rounded the building closing the distance toward the man, drunk in the blast of the horn, impervious to the warning it screamed.

He braced for the impact, but too early it came from the side rather than the front. He grunted as he fell to the west of the tracks, dazed, his shoulder screaming from the impact of the man he was now tangled with. “Hey!” He shoved the man away from him, looking longingly at the train that filled the air with clunks and clatters and hissing air so that even his crazed screams were drowned. He turned around; where had the man gone?

There! He took a swing, yelling himself hoarse. How dare this stranger take from him the one refuge, one solution, one bliss?

The man stood calmly and took the punch to his face, stumbling backwards as he turned his head to take the hit.

Drunkenly he swung again, chasing the man toward the far side of the tracks and an abandoned lot filled with wild grasses blowing in the tumult from the train.

The man caught the next punch, holding the dirty hand in his, eyes looking straight into the vagrant’s eyes, and the air filled with roaring silence as train finished passing. The man spoke, “You will come out now.”

The mass swirled around the vagrant, lifting his coat as if he was caught in a strong wind. “No!” It chorused, loud to the vagrant’s ears, louder than the train, louder than the silence. He jerked to pull his hand from this man’s grip but could not; the man was stronger. No one in all of his weeks as a vagrant had dared to lay a hand on him; the legion of demons had made him strong, and when the crazed look of his eyes didn’t scare them, a jaw-breaking punch would send them running. This man, though, purple bruise rising on his jaw, stood firm, vice grip holding his arm, and eyes steady on him. “You will come out.” The vagrant felt as if the train had actually hit him and had the split second thought that the man was a dream and this really was the end as he crumpled to the ground in a heap. A startled flock of possessed blackbirds cawed angrily and rose in a swarm from the grasses of the empty lot, flowing around the man as they flew away above the city.

The vagrant jerked awake, the sound of another train shaking him from the stupor. The man stood there, a kind look on his bruised face. “You are well?” The man spoke softly, and for some reason there were no evil voices, no competing thoughts to cloud his answer, “I am well.” Suddenly and overwhelmingly through the adrenaline of pure joy, the vagrant knew he must follow this man. “I will go with you!”

The corners of the man’s eyes crinkled with mirth and laughter and love. “You go home. You are a vagrant no longer but a husband.”

“Yes!” His black-haired bride returned to his thoughts full-force, and in his heart there swelled such a tide of love that he could hardly stand. The man reached out to steady him. “She waits for you.”

“Yes!” The husband turned to run and jerked to a halt. “You… you,” he couldn’t make the words come out. The man had hit him harder than the train ever could’ve. “You!”

“Yes,” the man did laugh then, a sound like brooks of water, feasts with friends, and sunshine breaking through the clouds. The husband laughed too, humility and wonder making his skin tingle. He looked down at his hands—clean! He felt his face—smooth! His arms were no longer in the dingy, smelly jacket, and his pants were clean and pressed. On what had been bare feet were new shoes, fresh socks, and when he sniffed, he smelled aftershave. He laughed harder when the man raised his eyebrows and waved his hand in front of his face and then off to the side as if to say the stink was gone. They both laughed until they couldn’t breathe. “Thank you,” he yelled out when his voice returned. The man touched his arm once more, and the husband knew so many things: the man had cleaned him, his debt was paid, and his wife would be waiting. While the man’s hand was upon him, he saw glimpses of what might be children and a home with a yard and vacations at the beach and then a grey-haired couple walking in a pleasant park toward a party of folks who looked a lot like children and grandchildren. It was brief but so poignant and beautiful that the husband was speechless. The man nodded his head in the direction of the once-forgotten apartment, and pushed the husband lovingly and gently on toward his future.

Late on a Tuesday morning she sat once more in the light from the window, her long dark hair shining in the evening sun. One of her few funny memories from childhood had brought a surprising smile to her lovely face, and distracted by the sewing in her lap, she did not hear the door open.

The door opened easily at his touch though surely she had put the lock on. He stood in the doorway soaking in the room: clean and orderly kitchen, table with the small vase and one wildflower, chair by the window, and bed in the corner. It all glowed with the beauty of familiar home, but the crowning jewel was the wife before him. She looked up then, the line of her jaw relaxed and her innocent green eyes widening in shock.

“You!” she breathed out, startled. He suddenly remembered how he had stuttered the same word to the man, and he couldn’t help but laugh as the joy welled inside of him again. “Yes!” He answered to mimic the conversation beside the train track.

She stood shocked, bewildered, nervous, and eager, her sewing falling to her feet. He came forward then, striding with confidence and love and reached for her questioningly. She nodded once, and he held her, strong arms circling her thin shoulders. She could smell new cleanness, a familiar but fresher smell. He stepped back and took her hands. “Will you, can you forg…” but before he even had the words out, she was screaming, laughing, crying, “Yes! Dearest, yes!”

The first demon entered him, very appropriately, in the darkest hour of night. He awoke as if summoned by the red glare of the 2:00am beside him. Though they had fallen asleep as they usually did, wrapped together, intertwined as a physical symbol of their peace and love, at some point she had rolled away. Something about the lines of her back and the distance of the sheet between them made an opening. “Her love for me is dying,” he mourned as he drifted back off to dream that she had left him on a Tuesday with a cruel look in her eyes.

The next morning was much as usual. He brought her coffee to drink while she woke up in bed. He sipped his beside her, firing up his computer for the work of the day. They eventually shook sleep off completely and made their little bowls of oatmeal in the tiny kitchen, joking as they usually did about the way their elbows bumped each other as they worked in the space. When he kissed her goodbye, something about the light in her eyes reminded him of his dream.

“What’s wrong?” She asked with the breeziness of knowing that nothing really was. “Oh, nothing,” he answered as she had expected. “Have a great day.”

She did. She sung as she worked, stitching love into a mailman’s uniform, a councilman’s wife’s dinner dress, and a baby’s christening gown. The blows of a harsh childhood had taught her to crave quiet, and the sun warmed her long dark hair as the light from their one window circled their high apartment room.

When he came home that evening, he brought a second demon with him. His work had tired him, and he was hungry for the dinner she had not yet prepared. “Were you that busy?” He grumbled a bit, and she left her sewing to smooth his brow with her cool strong fingers before she heated their soup for dinner. As they ate, he told her that the taxes had taken more than he had figured, and they didn’t have enough for rent again. Her ears were not yet attuned to the half-accusation that he knew and hated in his own voice. She ignored the unspoken: that the timidity that kept her in their apartment for most of the day cost them dearly. Instead, she heard the hurt and showered him with compassion. He saw her love and softened.

Demons attract their own kind, though, and as the bills piled, he welcomed three or four more, at some point losing count of the bitterness and frustration and hopelessness that began to sour their sweet evening discussions and their mornings together. One morning he felt he couldn’t bare it any longer, “I have a meeting after work today,” he lied. She responded graciously; he felt she didn’t even care, and he took it as a pass to do whatever he wanted.

There was no meeting after work, so 6pm found him sitting at a bar. The first time he handed over his hard-earned money for a drink, he saw it as a bag of potatoes or a whole chicken, but by the second drink, the demons had done their work, and he only saw his hard-earned money exchanged for well-earned relaxation. He had three that night without dinner, and as he walked, head spinning, home, he couldn’t say he had enjoyed the experience. He wouldn’t do it again. All he needed was to prove that he could order his own life as he chose.

She smelled the spirits on his breath, of course, but she assumed he’d had a drink with his work dinner. He didn’t ask for food, and the secret grew between them, another demon with a few friends. Shame bloomed although he chided himself for feeling ashamed of taking what he obviously deserved. His anger made him short with her; though she had mended his second suit in her extra time that evening, he didn’t thank her.

It was on a Tuesday when she realized that the warm, gentle man she had known was gone. She had put on her best dress and made his favorite dinner to celebrate their love. He came in harried, thinking to himself that he probably should have stopped at the bar on the way home; all the men in the office did, after all. He kissed her cheek and told her shortly that he might have to go back out. Eyes darkened and face flushed, she defended herself, “I’ve made your favorite dinner.” He did not hear the love, only the accusation in her tone.

“Well, I guess I’ll cancel and stay home then.” It was the right words said with the wrong inflection, and she gulped down her tears with her spicy rice and beans. When he supposed they would want to “spend some time together” that night, she did what she had never done before: claimed a headache and lay untangled, back straight on their bed until she heard his even breathing. She prayed for a way to tell him how it felt, to give him more love, to repair what seemed broken, and her pillow was wet when she finally spent herself and slept.

The next night he didn’t come home until he had visited the bar though he had said nothing about it that morning. Her mother had come during the afternoon, and she had felt cheered, buoyed up by the encouragement of the woman who had born her, reared her, and protected her from the dangers of their household. She honestly hadn’t noticed that it was after seven when her mother left. When the door closed behind her mother, though, she felt the loneliness overwhelm her. She only ate her grief, and she prayed herself to an early sleep. He felt abandoned when he returned to the silent studio apartment, the moon sending a shaft of light to separate their living from their sleeping area where she lay. He turned from her, justified again and dizzy, quietly fishing a loaf of bread out of the cabinet beside their sink. When he lay down later, he noticed that the moonbeam had fallen on the face of his beloved. Her parted lips held a hint of joy, and her long lashes lay on smooth pale cheeks. Her hair curled about her on the pillow, and he was startled by the beauty shining in the bed beside him. The alcohol made him quick to sleep and slow to dream, but when he did, it was to see her, ethereal and out of reach, in the moonlight under tall white trees.

The next week he lost his job. It wasn’t because he had hidden his new bottle of liquor in his second right drawer or because he had begun to nap in the afternoon at his desk; it was just layoffs, he told himself. But he did not tell her. He just brought his bottle home in his pocket and, hiding it in the bathroom closet behind a stack of extra towels, thought to himself irritably that this apartment never even gave a man room to breathe to himself.

He spent money they didn’t have, and she sewed extra to pay the rent. He wandered the streets during the day until he could justify stopping someplace to get a drink, and sometimes he woke up in the night thirsty. They survived with little conversation, and she realized that she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him smile.

It was another Tuesday when he came home from his wanderings more drunk than usual that she was waiting for him, standing tall in front of the dying light of the window. “The office called to tell you that you had forgotten your box of things when you were fired last week.” She said it with a strong but strangled voice, determined to push it out with courage. His first inclination was to deny; he took a breath but then changed his mind. He shrugged his shoulders and faced her, “Yeah? What?”

“We said we wouldn’t lie to each other. What have you been doing? How are you feeling? Why won’t you let me help you?”

His fury at her lack of respect made his steps to her strong despite his grogginess. “I am just fine, thank you very much. I will figure this out on my own.”

“We can’t live like this. We’re going to lose the apartment. Where will we live?”

“I said I will figure it out,” he was shouting now, his pungent breath in her flushed face.

She realized this next part was not what he wanted to hear, but since they were talking, she needed to put it out there. “My mom said we could move in with her.”

He hit her then, a backhand across her cheek, and she was so stunned that the force of it sent her to the floor. He stood panting over her, too blind and furious to hear her cries, but when she looked up at him, her dark eyes wide and her curls brushing the floor beside her, he saw the cut on her cheek leak one drop of blood. He stared at it, transfixed, as time slowed.

He saw her shy by the pond in the park laughing with friends. He saw her nod yes while he was on his knees, the lights of the city around them glinting off the joy in her eyes. He saw her regal in white with the colors of the stained glass spilling around her. He saw her with a ponytail scrubbing their very own one room. He saw her as he had only weeks before, glowing like an angel in the moonlight.

All of this flashed through his mind in the time it took that one drop of blood to fall. It hit the linoleum and beaded up, red against the yellow pattern. Sober now, he felt the demons crowd his mind and heart, but he held them back. She looked up at him and somehow saw the struggle. “I love you,” she said clearly.

“I love you,” he said and fled.

Why Don’t We Talk About Jonah’s Mother?

Afterwards, their coach would guide them to lean on the fence, perhaps having them bend over, slowing their breath, slowly drinking a few sips of water. Once in those moments after a quick race, I saw my son’s teammate lose their pre-race snack violently because of the effort. The coaches were there quickly to soothe them and guide them off the track.

I have recently been studying my way through Hebrews, looking for a new way to understand peace. Perhaps peace is different than we think, not less than quiet moments and vacation pleasure, but so much more.

Jesus said in John 14:27, “My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.” There must be something to this peace that we don’t quite understand; it’s other-worldly. Barnes, a 19th century theologian said in his commentary on this verse, “Peace … meets all the wants of the soul, silences the alarms of conscience, is fixed and sure amid all external changes, and will abide in the hour of death and forever. How desirable, in a world of anxiety and care, to possess this peace! and how should all who have it not, seek that which the world can neither give nor take away!”

In struggling with this desire to know more about this otherworldly and highly desired trait, I came to Hebrews 12. “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus…” Perhaps peace is a bit like this.

“Faith Finisher”

Peace pursued is a finish line
Weight thrown off, apathy declined
Race run in dust and sweat
Trained, scrutinized, pushed, pressed
Pounding track, muscles strained
Peak output, capacity attained
Each foot of advance, well-fought
Perseverance, purpose-sought
Contest finished, formidable effort
Stop the clock, personal record
Bent over, heaving, wild crowd clapping
First prize seized, all fears conquering
Eyes still fixed, focused on Coach and Friend:
All ambitions met in One, Beginning and End.

I want to live in a way that is full of peace, full of the feeling of crossing a finish line with my eyes on the Person who gives me strength.

The Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage that has been around for more than a thousand years. In the Middle Ages there were only three pilgrimages that Catholics could take to be completely absolved of all of their sins: Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela. Santiago means “Saint James,” and the legend says that after the apostle James was killed in Jerusalem, his disciples put his body in a boat and brought it back to northwest Spain where, the legend goes, James had preached after the Dispersion. There are many roads and paths to get to the cathedral that is supposed to hold James’ remains, but the most traveled is the French Way that begins in St. Jean Pied-de-Port and travels over the Pyrenees Mountains into and across north Spain for 500 miles. Wherever a pilgrim starts, the ending is the same: the beautiful and ornate Cathedral de Santiago, built in the 12th century.

At some point in my bragging about training for this long hike, someone said, “So you’re really going, then?” I answered, “Yes, yes, I am.” Then I thought, “I guess I’m roped in now!”

After Christmas 2025, I talked it over with my husband, and he gave me the green light. I watched tickets to Madrid like a hawk until I felt like I had found the absolute cheapest one, and I bought it. I was really committed then. I kept taking my long hikes, working up to the amount of mileage I would need to put in daily on the Camino. I decided to start in Sarria, which is a very common starting place because, in order to get your “Compostela” or Pilgrim completion certificate to be really considered a pilgrim, you have to walk at least 100 km. Sarria is 115 km from Santiago de Compostela. That’s 75 miles of walking. I decided to take six days.

My next hike was a twelve mile loop on the side of the mountain behind Covenant College. Ten miles in, I rolled my ankle and heard a loud POP. I knew that it was sprained. I grabbed a stick from beside the trail and hobbled myself back to my car, trying to be thankful that it wasn’t any worse. It’s hard to despair in the bright sunshine and fresh air even when the pain is growing in your ankle. At home, though, when I pulled off shoes and peeled off socks, I literally saw my ankle blow up like a birthday balloon. Sitting in the bed with my ankle up and iced the next three days, I promised myself this would not hinder my trip in eight weeks, and I used my time to book all of my hotel rooms.

A lot of the pilgrims hiking the Camino stay in hostel-like dorm situations called albergues. I decided that when you’re a 48-year-old female traveling alone, you probably need a lock on your door, a quiet place to sleep, and maybe most importantly, your own bathroom. Even those kinds of rooms are very inexpensive along the way; there is a spirit of wanting everyone to be able to walk the Camino if they feel called (or, in the case of the Middle Ages, are sent there for penance by their priest).

Long story short, I did see an orthopedic surgeon who gave me a beastly brace to wrap around my ankle and assured me that, with it, I would be able to walk just fine. The Camino was on!

To understand the significance of a hiking trip like this for me, I need to back up and tell a bit about myself and my health. Ten years ago, all crazy broke loose in my abdomen. I was diagnosed with endometriosis and ulcerative colitis. I had five small children at the time, and everything in my life ground to a halt besides taking care of my family and making it through the surgeries and health issues. At times the fatigue was so strong that I would spend most of the day directing our homeschooling and house cleaning from the couch. Walking up the stairs to the sanctuary at our church sometimes felt like climbing Mt. Everest. I started “counting spoons,” a metaphor that those of us with chronic illnesses know too well: one spoon equals a unit of energy. If I took a shower, that took spoons. If I went to the grocery store, that took spoons. And when you have constant pain and can’t eat much, the number of spoons you have to spend in a day dwindles to almost none.

After the last surgery, all the wise people in my life told me to expect it to be two years before I felt an upsurge in energy and health. At two years I did start to see a rise, but it was oh, so slow. Most of my kids chose more formal schooling, and I got a job teaching part time in a local homeschool tutorial (some of them came with me). I started meeting friends for tea again, and I occasionally even took a short walk with my husband down the pathway near our house. I remember the day it snowed as I came home from school, and I had the energy to put on a thick sweater and go walk in the woods for a bit to see the beauty. I was so proud and thankful for the energy to do such a thing.

Fast forward five years, and here I am with a plane ticket, hotel rooms, and plans to not only walk through airports and train stations, but also walk from town to town with no other mode of transportation. God is very, very good.

While I was planning for this trip, I started to worry about the amount it was costing our family. We really didn’t have the money for something extra like this, so I started selling things on Facebook marketplace and taking books to a local used bookstore that would give cash. I was making no progress, really. One day I got fed up with the stress I was feeling and yelled at God, “I’m done. You handle this. It’s not fair to take away from our family for this trip, so if You really want me to go, You pay for it.” (Warning: be careful when you yell at God. He will answer. It probably won’t be what you expect!)

A few days later I was going early to school across town, driving in the fast lane of the interstate, and A MAN STEPPED OUT IN FRONT OF MY CAR. I am not kidding. I slammed on my breaks, and two cars hit me from behind. I was a crying mess, thinking about the possibilities that thankfully did not just happen. The man had excuses, and I was sure that I was going to be at fault. Glory be, I wasn’t. In fact, when I mentioned whip lash to the two insurances that called, they couldn’t offer me money fast enough. Another long story short, the wreck paid for doctors, massages, fixing my car, and my Spain trip, twice over!

The week before I left for Spain, TSA workers stopped coming to work, and the place most affected was the airport I was flying out of. I don’t know why I worried. Looking back, God had handled everything else! He handled that too. Even though the day before I left some people waited in the TSA line for nine hours, I breezed through.

My husband dropped me off with a big hug at 4:30am on a Wednesday morning to start my adventure. I felt, as I walked away from his truck and through the doors of the airport, that those were the first steps of my Camino. I flew to Miami, took a bus to the beach because I had a nine hour layover, and then flew to Madrid. In the Madrid airport, I had to figure out how to get on the Renfe train to get to my train station, and there were English speakers right next to me trying to figure it out as well. A kind Spanish lady helped us. Near the train station, I wandered in to my first bar/cafe to get my one real meal of the day. Sitting next to an actual leg of a cow, set up on the bar in a place of honor, I ordered chicken and a salad from a the English version of the menu. For the first time, but definitely not the last, I turned down the marvelous bread of Spain because gluten makes all my joints flame up. I turned down the beautiful, freshly shaved mutton for the first time, but not the last as well, because beef is another of those things that my gut cannot handle. It was frustrating, but I still felt free and full and thankful.

The train took me straight to Sarria and I walk a few steps of the actual Camino trail to get to my hotel for the night where the nicest hostess I’ve ever met was standing out in the street to greet me. She gave me my pilgrim’s card and the first stamp on it. Each pilgrim must get at least two stamps a day from hotels, restaurants, shops, or roadside tables to prove that they are actually walking the miles. I slept like a person who had been traveling for 30 hours and woke ready for this new adventure.

The next six days of walking, thinking, writing poetry, meeting new people, sleeping soundly in comfortable beds, having NO RAIN (unheard of at this time of year for Galicia) and sometimes achieving that space where I wasn’t thinking at all--just being--are days I will never forget. Already, after less than a week at home, they are like a gilded treasure in my heart. I saw Roman fort ruins from 1 A.D, old towns that had sheltered pilgrims for 1000 plus years, and peaceful hills, fields, trails, mountains. Everything was sparkling like Narnia, and felt just as invigorating.

When I walked through that tunnel and into the courtyard in front of the majestic cathedral with all the other pilgrims around me celebrating, my emotions were soaring higher than the highest statues of Santiago on the cathedral towers. I tear up even now thinking of it. Seventy-five miles doesn’t seem like much, but the Camino joins the physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional so well as you push your mind and body to just KEEP WALKING that your whole being sings when you reach your destination. In Santiago, I took a bus to the Spanish coast to see the coastal end of the Camino, took a rooftop tour of the cathedral, and wandered the streets of the ancient town, journaling and taking it all in. I made a new friend on one of the tours who spoke English (yay!) and ate dinner with me one night, ordering the Galician specials: octopus and beef. We talked and talked even though our backgrounds and lives are so very different. My favorite thing she said was once when I mentioned that the ocean always made me think, “How can people not believe in God?” she responded quickly with, “I know! I always tell my friends, when you see a baby’s hands and feet, how can you f-ing not believe in God?” She came from a family of devout Catholics and was in Santiago for the Holy Week festivities.

On the Camino it is popular to have a reason to walk. Being a writer, I thought long and hard about that before I went and wrote this: “Why am I walking? To rely on God’s grace, leaning in trust by celebrating (Joy) the lovingkindness of the Lord in order to encourage that theme to overflow in all my writing and my life.” Go ahead, roll your eyes; I’m rolling mine too. God did that, of course, and so much more. A lot of what He was doing in my heart was unentangling me from my kids, who are old enough now to make decisions on their own and often make terrible ones. The messages I heard whispered from my loving Lord as I walked through those sun-haloed miles were simple. Keep walking the way. One step at a time. I’ve got this (you don’t). This is enough. Go slow. Notice the beauty around you. Enjoy this moment. Rest. Rest your feet. Rest your back. Smell the eucalyptus. Feel the breeze and look long upon the patchwork fields. This is enough.

I’ll end with two words. “Camino” A pretty fair Spanish translation of John 14:6 is “Yo soy el camino, y la verdad, y la vida.” I guess the message there is to walk Him. His way. He is the way. The second word is one that was sent in a “word of the day” email right before I left, and it’s perfect for explaining the Camino for me. “Solivagant” (Do you see most of my name in there?) It means a solitary wanderer or ambling alone, but it sounds like “so live again” to me. This is what my Camino symbolizes for me--living again: health from illness, peace from anxiety, and freedom to write my poems and stories for the Lord.

“Beyond All Understanding”

It’s not the patchwork fields on hills

Or the majestic stretch of sea.

It’s not the clear blue sky

On days when you have only to be.

It’s not a cozy fire, warm quilt,

Enthralling book rainy day.

It’s not family gathered ‘round table,

All is well in the most comfortable way.

He defends your heart and mind,

The abiding Man, fixed firm and fast:

Seek that Rock at all times to find

The only Peace Maker, first and last.

Phil 4:6-7

Olivia Oster

P.S. He is the peace, not the Spanish countryside.

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Recognizing the Monster

For ten years I’ve been on a health journey that includes multiple diagnoses, somehow continuing all my jobs in the midst of crushing fatigue, and a flurry of surgeries. Amidst that I stopped journaling, stopped writing poetry, and only once in a while picked up a pen to work on one of my four novels.

One day a friend recommended an integrative doctor, and I made an appointment. Before blood tests or samples, he asked me loads of questions and then asked me, if I was willing, to visualize my pain and ask IT a question. I did. The shocking answer led me to seek health in a way I had not expected at all: through joining a writing community, a writer’s group, writing daily, and getting poems published.

In Very Short Story Form

The girl lifted her thin arms as if to ward off something solid above her. It wasn’t solid, that black cloud, black as ink that pushed against her with ominous strength.

She recalled the question she was supposed to ask and screamed it up at the oily mess through gritted teeth, “Why. Are. You. Here?”

Grey tendrils from it roiled over her slight body, whipping her brown hair behind her and tangling her skirt. She knew it couldn’t really speak, but every straining muscle in her weary body felt the answer, “You brought me.”

Though the blackness above her caused her so much fear, the answer was kind, slow, thoughtful. She knew without a doubt the blackness and the words belonged together, but the unsaid “dear one” at the end of the feeling shocked her, even disgusted her.

She screamed back with more volume than one small girl should have, “I didn’t make a monster! Why. Are. You. Here?!”

The felt answer was instant and overwhelming, “I protect you, lonely friend. I teach you how to rest.” She knew it was true, horribly true: painful and comforting at the same time. She had fought this black cloud for so long; had her fighting been grasping even a little? Had she clung to this enemy?

She stopped her screaming. Her voice was hoarse anyway, and it could probably even hear the thoughts in her head. “I want you to leave,” she whispered, still aloud. “I don’t want you to hurt my family anymore.”

The oily black writhing dark mass somehow became more real above her and its answer buzzed through her to her core and back again, making her hair stand straight up in defiance of the wind. “USE ME. Use me, use me, use me. USE ME!”

It pulsed maddeningly around her and through her, and at that moment in her mind’s eye, she saw clearly for the very first time. All the not-so-heroic events of her small life had led to this.

That broken piece of reed that she had nearly died to retrieve lay on the dirt where she had thrown it in anger earlier, and dropping to her knees, she picked it up reverently. It wasn’t meaningless! She wasn’t meaningless.

Still kneeling, she pointed it up into the fearsome cloud. Her bowed head lifted, and another jolt of knowing (and being known) traveled through the reed and down her arm into her heart as every bit of the blackness funneled into the reed in her hand.

It wasn’t a broken reed; it was a pen.

This Substack is just another step on a journey.

Come walk with me.