A woman walked up to Brian and told him, Sometimes all you’re asked to do is something small. Brian thought the message odd, but he heard a voice inside him say, Thank her. So, he thanked her.
After she walked away Brian wondered what just happened.
Was the unexpected jingle of joy ringing inside him because he obeyed that inner voice and thanked her? How could something so insignificant as common courtesy have such a profound effect?
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Denise offers the prompt word “jingle” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Thinking of himself as a miniscule speck on a miniscule planet lost in a non-miniscule universe challenged Brian’s mind. He hoped aliens from a galaxy far far away would come with their advanced technology to tell the world what life was all about. Only they could save him and the world he lived in.
Passing a church Brian heard people singing songs of joy because the Lord had come. He complained to the wind about deluded people who thought there was a God out there working miracles on their behalf.
At least that’s what he did until the miracle occurred which allows me to end this meaningless tale that was going nowhere as Brian suddenly stopped running his mouth and wept for joy.
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Denise offers the word “challenge” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
The Midianites loved to cross the Jordan during harvest time to raid their Israelite neighbors like a swarm of locusts. On the other hand, to the discredit of the Israelites many of them had set up altars to Baal forgetting the Lord in proud times of prosperity while expecting the Lord not to forget them when trouble came.
With the Midianites camped nearby preparing to raid, Gideon threshed wheat by his winepress trying to harvest something discretely before they trod across the land demanding all. That’s when the angel of the Lord appeared to him to tell him that he was sent to save his people and the Lord would be with him.
Gideon reminded the angel that he was a nobody, a nothing, and that his subsistence farm, thanks to those Midianites whom the Lord has done nothing about, was well below subsistence levels. The angel of the Lord knew all of that, but, considering the lesson that needed to be learnt, the weakness of Gideon’s position was one of the main reasons why he was chosen.
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Denise offers the prompt word “farm” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. To read what really happened to Gideon (Jerubbaal) and his family especially his sons, Abimelech and Jotham, see Judges 6-9.
The angel, shining with the glory of the Lord and fearful to behold, gave glad tidings of great joy. The joy was without limit. Look for the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger.
Then the heavenly hosts praised God, saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
In Bethlehem we found the child.
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Denise offers the prompt word “limit” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. For what really happened see Luke 2.
Neil recalculated using a different ratio of aligned nuclei in his controversial water-hydrogen model. Fifteen minutes later the results gave him the number he was looking for, 7576.3, with intermediate computations validating the steps, but with an uncertainty of 21.2. He wanted a tighter uncertainty before submitting his paper to the Institute, but the main result, regardless of the uncertainty detail, was well below Hardy’s upper bound of 7670.
Neil’s wife called from downstairs, Earth to Daddy, pizza’s ready!
His daughter also called, Earth to Daddy, pizza, pizza, pizza!
Neil walked down the stairs, picked up his giggling daughter, kissed his smiling wife and led a prayer of thanksgiving over the food knowing that, whatever the uncertainty, his family had much to rejoice over.
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Denise offers the prompt word “detail” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
George listened to Anton say, Those in Hell want to be there. This convinced George that Anton hung onto reality by only a looney link since why would anyone ever want to be in a place like that?
When George died and went to Hell he became a prominent commander in Satan’s army commissioned to nuke the daylights out of Heaven. By contrast when Anton died he went to Heaven.
George exhausted himself throughout his eternity attacking Heaven in every which way he could imagine with extreme prejudice. However, Heaven being what it is, Anton noticed none of it.
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Denise offers the prompt word “link” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
I got the idea that I put in Anton’s mouth that those in Hell wanted to be there from the following passage in The Great Divorce.
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. (C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, page 75)
Ryan paced the floor complaining about Timothy whom he paraded for judgement through his mind. His indignation was so rationally air-tight that he built a dam of condemnation out of it.
Then a miracle happened. Ryan had a vision of how much the Lord loved Timothy in spite of every accusation Ryan could concoct against him.
When Ryan’s own repentance breached the dam, he didn’t know what overcame him. His heart was flooded with joy.
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Denise offers the prompt word “vision” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
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.
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.
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.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 