I Heard the Tales on Christmas Day

By Martha Black

I Heard the Tales on Christmas Day is composed of twenty Christmas stories. My daughter suggested the title, and I loved it. Christmas is a delightful time of year. Christmas stories allow you to enjoy that pleasure at any time.

Every story is distinctly different from all of the others. Those who have read them say this book has stories for everyone. Some of the stories will make you rejoice, and some will make you weep. My whole purpose in writing these stories was to make people feel a myriad of feelings but come away satisfied.

Some of the stories were born out of deep loss that worked its way to the redemption that is Christmas. One story explores the mindset of one who hates Christmas, whose experience is challenged by the mindset of one who loves Christmas. One story lets you feel the crushing loss of independence and rejoice to find that God always has a way.

God shows a preacher who cruelly judged his daughter that his sin equaled or surpassed her own. In another story, a young boy seeking to improve the life of a man on hospice finds himself greatly benefitted from his caring and challenged to pay it forward for the rest of his life.

Homeless people find a way to crawl out of their circumstances so they can use their lives to help others. Another story shows how a teacher changes the life of a boy who has lost his mother. Yet another finds a young man getting the gift he has begged for all his life. A soldier with PTSD is gifted by God with a four-legged remedy.

Come and find Christmas joy laid out for your enjoyment. Feel a vast array of feelings wrapped in these stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 8, 2024
• ISBN: 9798889436669

Book preview

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I Heard the Tales on Christmas Day

Martha Black

ISBN 979-8-88943-665-2 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88943-666-9 (digital)

Copyright © 2024 by Martha Black

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Really, Milly?

I Hate Christmas

Not an Angel

Borrowed Christmas

You Gave Your Life

The $25,000 Test

Joe's My Friend

Best Christmas Gift Ever

The Card

Pay It Forward

Living in the Light

A Christmas Gift

His Mama's Memory

A New Christmas Spirit

It Was God's Idea

The Christmas That Changed Them All

God's Christmas Present

God's Son

An Awesome Christmas Present—Late

Ms. Lily's Gift

About the Author

Really, Milly?

Oh, Milly, I miss you so much. It's almost Christmas. How can I celebrate Christmas without you? I miss you down deep in the depth of my being. I'm lost without you. I ache for you.

God, why did you take my Milly? You know how much I loved her. I loved the joy in her eyes as she sat across the breakfast table from me drinking her morning coffee. I loved sitting in the porch swing with her, gently swinging the dusk away. I loved walking through the woods with her. I loved having her snuggled up to me while we watched TV and in bed. How are you going to replace all I'm going to miss about her?

Johnny got up slowly from the porch swing, tears blurring his eyes. It was bedtime, but there was no joy at the thought of getting into his bed alone. Milly had been gone for six weeks, but it seemed like six years. The bed had been a wonderful place where Milly had lain in his arms night after night. Now his bed was empty and cold and lonely.

Help me, God! Help me be able to live without Milly. The thought turned his blood cold. How could he do it? How could he make his memories of Milly precious without the aching sense of loss? Show me how to find the joy I knew with Milly.

Sleep came eventually, and then came morning. Mornings had been a special time. When Milly opened her eyes, she was as awake as she was ever going to be, awake and ready for the day. She had nudged him until he, too, opened his eyes—another day with Milly.

Johnny stumbled into the kitchen and began preparing breakfast, a breakfast that was as bland and tasteless as his life was now. After breakfast, he poured a second cup of coffee and went to the porch steps where he and Milly had spent time each morning talking about the day.

A dog nudged his foot. Johnny jerked back and said, Where did you come from? Go away! Johnny did not like dogs.

He looked at the rusty brown and white long-haired dog. There was no collar, no identification. Then he looked again. This dog had one blue eye and one brown one. It was strange, but not ugly. Her tail was very long and majestically fanned out when she wagged it.

The dog sat down on the steps beside him. I don't know what you think you're doing, but you're not staying here! Dogs were the one point of disagreement between him and Milly. She had always wanted one, and he had always resisted.

Johnny watched the dawn stain the sky, totally ignoring the pushy dog beside him. The dog did not seem offended; he just stared at the colorful sky like Johnny was doing.

Johnny went into the house to get his walking stick and started down the path he and Milly had worn through the deep southern woods behind the house. The dog walked beside him. A squirrel darted across the path. The dog looked at it but continued to walk by Johnny. Johnny ignored the dog as though she were not there.

Walking in the woods with Milly had invigorated him, but walking without her was merely putting one foot in front of the other. What was the point? He tried to see all of the things that excited Milly, but his eyes saw only dirt, leaves, and trees. No excitement there.

When he returned to the house, Johnny sat on the porch swing. Walking no longer put a zip in his step. The dog jumped onto the swing and sat beside him. You've got your nerve, dog. You're not mine, and you're not going to live here! Got it?

Johnny pushed the dog off the swing, got the newspaper, and went inside. The dog sat on the welcome mat, looking in the screen door. It made Johnny nervous to see her every time he passed the door. I will not feed her! I will not give her water! If I do, she'll be here forever. He closed the door so she could not see in.

The day passed, and Johnny spent another lonely night in bed. He rolled over early in the morning, listening to the rain beating on the house. Milly had been so funny when it rained. She loved to turn her easy chair toward the plate glass window, rock, and enjoy the storm, especially the lightning.

He put on the coffee and went to get the newspaper before starting breakfast. There, in front of the door, lay the brown and white dog rolled up in a ball. She was wet and shivering. What are you thinking, dog? Go home! He got his paper, but when he opened the door to go in again, he heard a gentle whimper.

Oh, for Pete's sake! I'll let you in just this once because it's raining, but it's not going to happen again.

Johnny found an old blanket and wrapped it around the dog and picked her up. He went inside to his chair and used the blanket to dry her off. She lay huddled in the blanket as he went to fix his breakfast.

She stared at him the whole time. He put a couple of extra strips of bacon in the pan and fried two extra eggs. When he sat down to eat, he put the extra food on the floor. The dog padded over but did not eat from the plate. Instead, she jumped onto a chair that was slightly pulled out from the table, Milly's chair.

Johnny looked from the dog to the plate on the floor, and finally, he picked up the plate and put it in front of the dog, who politely and gently ate her breakfast. Johnny bowed his head. Thank you, Lord, for this food. But what's the deal about this dog? You know that I don't want a dog! I've never wanted a dog. I want Milly!

It rained all day long. Other than putting the dog out to go to the bathroom, she stayed in the house, following him everywhere he went. It was still raining at bedtime.

I'm going to bed. You stay there on the blanket. Johnny got into his lonely bed one more time and lay quietly, listening to the rain. Eventually, he dropped off to sleep and dreamed of Milly.

Milly looked just as he remembered her. She took his face into her hands and kissed him gently on the lips. God answered your prayer, she said.

What are you talking about? I'm just as lonely as I was before.

You know what your trouble is, don't you? You're not paying attention. You told God you wanted him to make you happy without me. You told him you missed me at the breakfast table, in the swing, going walking, and snuggling in bed, right?

Johnny moved slightly in bed, and there was that snuggling feeling again. He drifted off to sleep and woke feeling much better. The dream came back to him, and he puzzled over it. Just then, he felt a movement in the bed. He got up on his elbow to look, and there was the dog in bed with him.

He was about to kick the dog out of the bed when he remembered what Milly had said, You aren't paying attention. He lay down, and in his mind, he saw the dog sitting by him on the porch and on the swing. He saw it walking the path with him and at breakfast. Now here was the dog, snuggling in the bed with him.

Milly, that's dirty pool! You told God to answer my prayer with a dog, didn't you? Really, Milly? How could you do that to me?

Johnny propped his pillow up so he could lean back on it. The dog crept up on his chest and nuzzled his neck. Johnny shook his head. Do you know what you are, dog? You're a gift from my Milly. She's still taking care of me. Johnny ran his fingers through the dog's long hair. I guess I'll have to give you a name. Milly loved the name Suzee. So Suzee it will be. Suzee's long hair felt good to his fingers.

"Well, Suzee, we've got to get up. We've got Christmas to attend to. We'll find us a tree in the woods and decorate it. Milly loved Christmas. You're Milly's Christmas gift to me. Finding joy in Christmas again will be my gift to her. Come on, Suzee. Let's get this done!"

I Hate Christmas

The music coming from the loud speakers in the street set Sandy's feet dancing. It was two weeks until Christmas, and she was so excited. She entered her beautifully decorated building and went straight to the elevator. When the door opened, Sandy stepped in humming Away in a Manger. She nodded to the other passengers and continued her humming.

As the door opened to her floor, she heard a voice behind her, saying, I hate Christmas. A nice-looking man glared at her.

Why on earth would you hate Christmas?

It's just another arm of religion.

Sandy stepped off the elevator but held the door open. Do you know the name of the baby in the manger?

Sure, everyone knows that. It was Jesus.

Well, here's a secret I bet you don't know. Jesus hated religion!

Sandy spun on her heel and headed for her desk, totally missing the shocked look on the man's face as the elevator door shut. The incident had not deterred Sandy's joy of the season, so she finished humming her song.

That evening, she thought about the man and wondered if she would ever have a chance to explain to him what she meant. She searched her Bible for the appropriate scriptures, wrote them down, and slipped them into her purse—just in case.

Sandy's love for Christmas ran deep. Oh, she didn't love everything about what Christmas had become, but she loved the true intent of Christmas. Her parents had made the season special for her, and though they