Balance—Six Sentence Story

Hoping to balance his wobbling view of reality Timothy read the message inside his fortune cookie. Given his expectations for something prophetic he felt cheated when all he read was

Have a nice day.

Self-diagnosed with the rare condition of being intellectually superior to everyone else, he vowed, as punishment to cookie makers everywhere, to never again eat, let alone read the messages within, their cookies.

However, like all of his previous resolutions, this one collapsed a week or so later when he got a taste for Chinese food and found a plastic wrapped cookie in his takeout bag. Figuring “the universe”, as he liked to depersonalize reality, was too dumb, or nonexistent, to care whether he kept his vows, he broke open the cookie to extract the hidden message. Regardless what was actually written on the slip of paper, all he remembered of the message he read was

If you aren’t grateful for a nice day, Timothy,
how can you expect to receive a blessed one?

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Denise offers the prompt word “balance” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

Turn—Six Sentence Story

In sorrow Naomi felt the need to turn away from Moab to find what was left for her in Bethlehem after the death of her husband and her two sons. Ruth, the widow of one of her sons, refused to let her go alone, telling her, Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay, and your people will be my people, and your God will be my God, and where you die, I will die.

In Bethlehem Ruth gleaned from the fields of an older man, Boaz, not knowing he was a near kinsman of Naomi’s deceased husband. After negotiations with another kinsman Boaz redeemed the land belonging to Naomi and married Ruth so she could bear children to raise up the name of her deceased husband upon his inheritance.

As a result of this union, Ruth, a Moabite woman, bore a son and called him Obed. From Obed would come Jesse and from Jesse would come David, the singer of psalms, mighty in battle and a future king, and from David would come, generations later, Jesus, the promised Messiah.

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Denise offers the prompt word “turn” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. For what really happened see the short book of Ruth.

Romans 10:13
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Power—Six Sentence Story

Matilda had a problem with her right hand that prevented her from closing her five fingers into a fist to pound it against the side table signaling the power of her displeasure when watching the news on TV. Her husband took her to doctors who listened to her give them a piece of her mind because they clearly had no clue what was wrong with her and one even discretely slipped her husband the name of an exorcist.

When a healer visited a local church her husband figured that a healer was a good enough proxy for an exorcist and encouraged Matilda to stand in line with others needing something or other. Since there were many in line the healer had time to only touch her forehead, as he did all the rest, and move on which annoyed Matilda because she expected a bit more than that. Besides, those on either side of her were jumping with joy that their ailments, likely candy-induced toothaches or well-deserved headaches, were suddenly gone while she was no better off than before.

Mumbling she left the church raising her hand against her husband with a fully clenched fist and letting him have it as he noticed, “Matilda, you’re hand is healed!” which would have been a happy ending to this tale except by the time they got home to test her recovery by giving the table a good wallop she could no longer clench her fist.

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Denise offers the prompt word “power” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

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Breakthrough – A Follow-up Six Sentence Story

Some may be concerned about Matilda.

After her failed healing, after her hand refused to clench into a fist, she began to laugh. Her husband laughed as well. Suddenly she had no desire to clench her fists. As the power of the breakthrough fell upon her she wondered why she ever did.

She and her husband were healed.

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