Second in a series on why I wrote, “Christmas on Pleasant Hill”
It seems like Christmas stories are usually set in other times or places than where we live.
I wanted to write a book where the magic was in my front yard, among my neighbors, at my church.
“Christmas on Pleasant Hill” is a book of 12 family Christmas stories set in a Cincinnati neighborhood. Some of them happened. The rest of them could have happened. A few of them may even have happened to my own family!
More than any other gift, we all need to feel the nearness and goodness of God. Everything we pour our time into in December – buying gifts, decorating, cooking, performing in concerts and plays, reading the old stories to our children – it’s all in the effort to give each other love and delight, to affirm that life is worth living and there is a good Creator in the midst of it.
We, as much as the characters in these stories, need to be reminded of these truths. Some are worn down from the exhaustion of trying to build a life out of poverty. Some are overwhelmed with the hard work of parenting. Some are broken by addiction, disability or someone else’s cruelty. All of them are ready for God to show up.
And God does show up, in many unexpected ways, right in the middle of everyday life. “Christmas on Pleasant Hill” shines a light on those moments, right where we live.
“Christmas on Pleasant Hill” is available from Amazon.
That’s one of the delights of your story collection, Colleen: the way you present God showing up in the lives of ordinary folks, demonstrating that such events are happening all around us–Christmas time or not. We just need to pay attention.
Thanks Nancy, that’s what I love to write about – God showing up!