A Christmas Prayer: An Amish Christmas Wedding Story

By Vannetta Chapman

An Amish Christmas Wedding story from author Vannetta Chapman.

Widower Micah Miller runs the Amish Tour Company, offering Englischers a glimpse of a simpler life as well as tea at Rachel King’s. Rachel has never married and has recently lost her parents. When Micah comes across an abandoned and injured dog, he gives it to Rachel for company. As Rachel is charmed by the dog and shocked by news of the existence of family she never expected, her heart and mind bend toward the possibilities of change in her life—even toward the possibility of love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Release date: Oct 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9780310361459

Vannetta Chapman

Vannetta Chapman writes inspirational fiction full of grace. She has published over one hundred articles in Christian family magazines, receiving more than two dozen awards from Romance Writers of America chapter groups. She discovered her love for the Amish while researching her grandfather’s birthplace of Albion, Pennsylvania. Her novel Falling to Pieces was a 2012 ACFW Carol Award finalist. A Promise for Miriam earned a spot on the June 2012 Christian Retailing Top Ten Fiction list. Chapman was a teacher for 15 years and currently writes full time. She lives in the Texas Hill Country with her husband. For more information, visit her at www.VannettaChapman.com

Book preview

title page

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Contents

Dedication

Epigraph

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Discussion Questions

Acknowledgments

Glossary

About the Author

Copyright

Dedication

For my students

Epigraph

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

—Luke 2:6–7

Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.

—Jean Anouilh

1

December 1

Shipshewana, Indiana

Micah was headed home after visiting a friend when the snowfall picked up in earnest. In no time at all, the ground was covered, and he had to lean forward for a good view of the road. Then something stumbled in front of him—white against white and low to the ground. He pulled on Samson’s reins, certain he would hit whatever it was.

But he didn’t.

He sat there in the middle of the blessedly empty road. The last thing he needed was to be rear-ended by another buggy or an Englisch car. But Shipshewana was a small town of barely six hundred residents, and although tourists swelled their ranks to thirty-five thousand at times, on this cold December evening he had the road to himself. Everyone else was snug in their houses.

Something had run across the road, though. What would be out in this storm? Any animal with a lick of sense would be bedded down.

On the other hand, if it had been a child . . .

He craned his neck for a better look at whatever was out on such a night. There it was, at the edge of the streetlight’s glow, headed down into the ditch. Micah whistled once—a short, sharp sound. Four-legged, limping, and nearly the same color as the snow accumulating on the side of the road, a dog turned, then sat and stared at him. Micah’s first inclination was to drive on. The temperature was dropping, and the snow was coming down hard for an early December storm.

He didn’t follow that inclination.

Micah had recently turned sixty. He was tall and thin, with streaks of gray in his hair and beard, and not particularly good-looking. He didn’t mind any of that. As an old bachelor—a widower, to be more accurate—he didn’t really care what he looked like. But his actions? He’d learned the hard way that the wrong choices would most certainly haunt him at night.

Nein, he wouldn’t be leaving the injured animal in the ditch.

He called out to Samson, who tossed his black mane before trotting to the side of the road. The horse stopped, head down, one forefoot stamping three times to convey his displeasure.

I know, Samson, but we can’t just leave it out here to freeze.

As he dropped to the pavement, he thought the dog might not come to him, that it might be frightened or bad-tempered or poorly trained. But another whistle from Micah, and it trotted within ten feet of him, then cocked its head and again sat. A female, the dog seemed too well trained to be a stray.

Stepping closer, Micah offered his hand for her to smell. When she didn’t snarl or snap, he squatted, his trouser legs immediately soaking up the snow, then ran his hand down her coat to the offending back leg. His fingers came away red. The wound was bleeding but not vigorously. It must have clotted in the cold. The dog whined softly, looking at Micah with eyes that appeared to understand what a fix she was in.

Come on, girl. Let’s get you in the buggy.

Micah slowed when they reached Samson, who sniffed the dog thoroughly, then tossed his head as if to say, Go ahead. Put her in. Then he glanced back at Micah.

"Ya, I know we can’t take her home. You don’t have to look at me that way."

His house wasn’t an option.

The animal shelter was closed at this hour.

Bishop Simon was out of town for the week. He’d taken a bus to visit family in Pennsylvania.

That left only one choice.

Micah checked the road in both directions, then turned the horse back the way they’d come. The drive took less than twenty minutes. He and Samson were both accustomed to the route since they took it five days a week. Rachel King served tea to the Englischer tourists he ferried to and from her house. She was always kind to strangers. He only hoped that kindness extended to the furry kind.

Who was he trying to fool? He thought of Rachel because she was on his mind more often than not. Micah’s wife had died five years earlier. He still missed her, but now his mind brought up only the good memories. And speaking of minds, Inez had never had trouble speaking hers. One of the last things she’d said to him was that he would need to move on. "Don’t sit around feeling sorry for yourself, Micah. Live every day of the life Gotte has given you."

Did that mean courting Rachel? Did sixty-year-old men court women? Or was it called something different? Regardless, he no longer felt it was unfaithful to have romantic thoughts about another woman, and the only woman he felt that way about was Rachel.

As he pulled into Rachel’s lane, he wondered how he would present the idea of taking in an animal to her, but nothing terribly inspiring came to mind.

Guess we’ll have to depend on your charm, he said to the dog, who didn’t respond but did nail him with her large brown eyes. In Micah’s opinion, Labradors could win someone over with only a look.

Let’s hope Rachel sees you the same way.

An image of her formed in his mind. She was a good six inches shorter than his six feet and round in the way of older women. Like his, her brown hair had a liberal sprinkling of gray, though he’d seen glimpses of it only once or twice in the two years he’d known her. They both had brown eyes too. Rachel always dressed neat and proper—her dress a conservative color, her apron clean and pressed, her kapp covering her head.

As he parked the buggy, he realized he’d brought the dog here for another reason. Something seemed to be eating at Rachel. She had a layer of sadness about her, just below the polite face she wore for everyone to see. He couldn’t claim to understand women, even though he knew intelligent and kind—and pretty—when he saw them. Rachel was all those things.

He suspected she was lonely now