A Child’S Seed of Faith

By Josephine Newton

An adventure in a dark, abandoned coal mine teaches an orphaned girl that even the tiniest bit of faith, as minuscule as a grain of sand or as tiny as a mustard seed, can make dreams come true.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449765323

Josephine Newton

Josephine Rose Newton was born and raised on San Salvador, a quaint and tranquil island nestled in the southern Bahamas. She graduated from high school in 1973. She was unable to pursue a college education, however her childhood experiences, brief marriages, struggles as a single mother of four, as well as a young grandmother, have taught her far more than she would ever have learned in a classroom. The use of her faith to overcome adversity has forged an inner strength. Even as a child, she had a passion for writing.

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Copyright © 2012 Josephine Newton

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-6532-3 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-6531-6 (sc)

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2012915756

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/18/2012

Contents

Introduction

The Orphan Sue

Into the Mine

Meeting Tucker

The Old Stranger

Faith

The Enchanted Garden

A Family of Her Own

I DEDICATE this book to my four children and seven grandchildren. Thank you for always being my inspiration. Remember God sees the best in us.

Introduction

WORKING IN the coal mines was no picnic in the early days. Those who worked there could do little else to put food in their children’s stomachs and clothes on their backs. Every day, after tucking their families safely away in their hearts, they would push fear aside and work arduously. In those dark, dusty tunnels, danger perched on their shoulders like hungry birds of prey. Anything could happen in the mines—cave-ins or explosions.

They would toil in the bowels of the earth, these brave, hardworking men, emerging at the end of the day, lungs burning, faces blackened by coal dust, praying to be well enough to return tomorrow and the day after that for more of the same. It’s no wonder that when they got home to their families, in the warmth of their living rooms, they were able to weave extraordinary tales of wonder, tales with the power to whisk their listeners away for a spell to lands far beyond the mining town. They spoke of people great and small, poor and rich; places exotic and magical that existed just beneath their feet. The story of the coal miner’s daughter was born in just such a setting.

Chapter 1

The Orphan Sue

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SUE WAS born and bred in a West Virginia coal-mining town. Her father, a local hero, died in the Coal Creek mine disaster, and influenza had taken her mother the year before. Sue was eight when she was orphaned. She had been the apple of her parents’ eyes. Now all she had were memories and their words of encouragement and love.

The only family Sue had left was Doran Bridgewater, her father’s estranged younger sister, a woman with a heart as black as the coal her father had died mining. Aunt Doran was vain and cared more about keeping up appearances than caring for others. She made a great show of telling everyone within earshot how she had taken the orphan into her home and how she loved Sue as if she were her very own. She paraded the child around in front of her friends and basked in the praise