E-book Sale on a Christmas Story from Harmony Hill

 

What fun to see that my Shaker Christmas novel, Christmas at Harmony Hill, is on special e-book sale right now at most internet sites for the very low price of 99 cents or less! That gives me the chance to offer you a very inexpensive gift of a story for Christmas. The book is set at the end of the Civil War. Hannah follows her husband, Gideon, to the war front as a washerwoman, but when she gets with child she returns to her home where she is turned away by her father who sided with the South while Hannah’s husband is fighting for the North. With nowhere to turn, she almost loses hope, but her mother, who died of cholera, left her a letter telling her to go to the Shaker village and seek help from her aunt Sophrena, a Shaker sister.

The Shakers had a day in December called Sacrifice Day or Day of Atonement where the Shakers were compelled to go to anyone they might have wronged in the past year and ask for forgiveness. The person approached was required to fully forgive the other with no hard feelings or carrying over injury or bad thoughts.  I wanted to have an underlying theme of forgiveness in this Shaker Christmas story since both Hannah and Sophrena had been mistreated by their fathers. Here’s a scene from the book where they work toward forgiveness as Hannah is in the early stages of labor to deliver her baby.

“Fathers. They can be so difficult to love.” A tear eased out of Heather’s eye and down her cheek. “Will this babe someday think that of his own father? My sweet Gideon?”

“Perhaps not.” Sophrena knew no other answer, for who but the Lord could look that far into the future. “Your Gideon may be different. I can see your love for him is strong.”

“Mother loved my father just as much and yet he closed the door on me, his child.” Heather sighed and brushed at the tears in her eyes. “Did your father close the door on you?”

“My father never seemed to know happiness. My mother suffered from melancholy and he had no patience with her dark moods. He loved his sons, but I was just another female with little use to him. When no boys were attracted to me at the proper time and it appeared I might end up an old maid on his hands forever, he found Jerome. Poor Jerome. He so desired to hold a place of honor in the church and he thought he needed to be married in order to do so. The Bible speaks of deacons being husband to one wife.”

“So he did shove you out of his house and close the door.”

“I suppose you could see it that way.”

Heather looked back toward the ceiling. Her body tensed for a moment and then she blew out a breath.

“It’s almost daylight. Should I go get help now?” Sophrena half rose up out of the chair.

“Not yet.” Heather waved her back into the chair. “I will be laboring much of the day, but now I can still talk.” She turned her head on the pillow to look straight at Sophrena. “Did you ever see your father again?”

“Nay, I did not. I found a new family here at Harmony Hill.” Her words were easy. She had never doubted that choice in those years. Never until this year with her father long dead.

“And so you never forgave him?” Heather looked back up toward the ceiling.

“I shook myself free from him.”

“But did you forgive him?” Heather didn’t wait for her to answer but went on. “Not caring would not be the same as forgiving, would it?”

“Nay, it would not.” Sophrena stared down at her hands and looked inward. A place of bitterness remained there in her heart. Something that shamed her now in the face of this young woman’s words.

“This Sacrifice Day the man spoke about at your meeting, when is it?”

“Today is the fifteenth of December. The visitors from the New Lebanon village will come the day before Christmas to lead us in our day of atonement.”

“Is that the same as forgiveness?”

“Forgiveness with purpose. One must find a way to make amends for wrongs done, to ask forgiveness from those wronged.”

“But what if you are the one wronged?”

“You can’t make another feel sorrow for such wrongs, but perhaps we, you and I, can seek forgiveness from the Lord for harboring that injury and forgive our fathers for the wrongs they did to us.”

“To do as your Shaker leader said, I’d have to tell my father I forgave him. And then I would have to clear my mind and heart of any memory of the wrong and let it be gone forever.”

“That is Sacrifice Day,” Sophrena said.

Heather held her hands over her baby again and this time groaned as the pain swept over her.

“The pains are stronger.” Sophrena looked toward the window. “The rising bell will ring soon. Let me go get help.”

“Not yet.” Heather breathed in and out slowly. “First let us have our own Sacrifice Day now, this minute. Mother begged me to forgive my father, knowing that his heart would be hard against me even before I made my way home. I do not want to walk into this valley of the shadow of death with this burden on me. Help me to do as your Shaker brother said.”

“We can pray.” Sophrena slipped out of the chair onto her knees beside the bed.

“Should I get up to kneel beside you?” Heather tried to get up but the movement brought a new gasp of pain.

Sophrena pushed her back down. “Nay, the Lord hears our prayers in any position.”

“Would you pray the words aloud for me? For both of us? I know you usually pray in silence, but I need the words in my ears today.”

“Yea, I will try, though it has been many years since I have spoken a prayer aloud.”

“The words are the same unspoken or spoken.”

“Yea.” Sophrena reached over and took Heather’s hands in her. Then she bent her head and was silent for a long moment. At last she began. “Dear Father in heaven, cleanse our hearts of unforgiving thoughts. Let us forgive as you forgive.” She paused again searching for the best words, but there were no best words. Only sincere ones. “I forgive my father for his cold heart toward me. And this child, Heather, she forgives her father for the same.”

Heather spoke then. “I forgive my father for closing the door and his heart on me. I will remember his love and forget his anger. Amen.”

“Amen,” Sophrena echoed her words. She stayed on her knees another long moment, silently asking forgiveness for other sins of the spirit and begging for love and mercy on this mother and her child soon to come into the world.

“Are you still praying?” Heather asked.

“Yea.” Sophrena opened her eyes and looked at Heather as the rising bell began to ring. “For you and for your baby.”

“Would you pray for Gideon too?”

Sophrena bent her head and prayed for this man she did not know, but that she often saw reflected in the love on Heather’s face.

When she looked up, Heather said, “Thank you, Aunt Sophre…” She didn’t finish her word as she stiffened when a new pain grabbed her.

Sophrena scrambled to her feet and held Heather’s hands until her breath came easier once more. She smoothed the hair back from the girl’s face and had the strongest desire to kiss her forehead like a mother kissing a child’s bump to make it better. But this wasn’t some little bump or scrape. This was the battle for new life and it had only just begun.

“I am going for the doctor.”

The girl caught her sleeve as she started to turn from the bed. “Don’t leave me, Aunt Sophrena. I fear being alone.”

“But he will know what to do.” Sophrena felt so helpless. She knew nothing about birthing babies.

“He will come after the morning meal. He always does. Besides, there is nothing he can do for these pains. It is as it must be. From pain comes joy.”

As Hannah continues through her birthing struggles she thinks of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and wonders if she felt the same pains.

If you would like to read more of this story and enjoy e-reading, you can grab a copy of Christmas at Harmony Hill for 99 cents. I loved writing about Hannah and Gideon and also Sophrena, one of the few characters I carried over from a previous Shaker book. Sophrena was the journalist in my book, The Gifted, and I grew so fond of her I wanted to share more of her story as a Shaker sister. You can find links to various online stores to download a copy on my book page for Christmas at Harmony Hill. Always double check the price before downloading to be sure you get the sale price. Christianbook.com has it for 79 cents if you like to shop there.

Do you think Christmas is a good time to forgive others and rid our hearts of bitterness we might harbor because of wrongs done to us?

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. …Colossians 3:13 (NIV)

P.S. Janice was the winner of her choice of These Healing Hills or An Appalachian Summer or one of my other books.  Janice, I’ve sent you an e-mail, so please check your mailbox.