Yet a Mother: short story based on an unfinished novel

[RobinLayne]

The following short story is based upon two novels I was working on years ago. They were called “Y'shua: Years in Nazareth,” and “Y'shua: The Ministry Years.” I have tried to be as true to my knowledge of the people and times as possible, but it was not always clear what form of the names was used, and much of my research for other parts of the novel didn't match. Because of that and some plot problems with some fictional material, I set the project aside. Hopefully, I will get back to it again.
I happened to mention the novels when I shared some drawings I did with some others on this website. Kisstheson said she would love to read what I have, and others agreed.
I may post other parts of the novel later, but it will probably require retyping it all off of hard copy, since the story is so old the disks I saved it on are no longer accessible.
“Yet a Mother” was printed in “Enlarging the Tent: Poetry and Prose by Robin Layne,” copyright 2000. I made about 25 copies of that book, most which I sold and a few gave away. This version has a few minor improvements.
Hope you enjoy it!

 

[RobinLayne]

YET A MOTHER
​

by Robin Layne​

​

Mariam was gathering up her weavings for market when her husband’s four sons stepped in the door of the one-room stone house and lined up in front of her. Oh, no, she thought. It’s time for one of their little meetings! These men were her sons, too, but in her passion for her eldest she seemed to forget. Y’shua was special. Yet her other children had never been told why he was any different from the rest of them. So when Yosef the Younger said, “We must talk with you about Y’shua,” she stopped clipping her tapestry off the loom and whirled to face them.
“What are you accusing my Y’shua of this time?”
“It’s not an accusation,” Simon said. “It’s a concern.” His brown eyes, his father’s sincere face, reassured her their intentions were good.
Mariam waited.
Yacoboy, her second eldest, spoke stiffly, like a Pharisee. “He has reached too far in his attempt to be a rabbi.”
“Attempt? You’re just jealous.”
“I’m not jealous . . . because he’s going to fail. He’s just picked twelve of those—men who follow him around—to be his intimate inner circle.”
“I know.”
“Apostles, he calls them. Those sent. And he claims to be the Messiah of God. That doesn’t worry you?”
Mariam was silent. She grieved that Yacoboy, who was bent on a religious life, was so skeptical of Y’shua. They were much alike in appearance, yet she could not shake the feeling that his inner spirit was as full of darkness as Y’shua’s was of light. “You should at least worry over who he’s chosen, Mother. Shimeon bar-Jonah, the loudest mouth in Capernaum” (in the Galilean drawl, it sounded like “Capharnum”), “is now officially one of his three right-hand men. Along with your nephews Yocobas and Yohannan.”
“That’s wonderful! Salome must be proud.”
“He’s not going to impress anyone with those three unschooled fishermen at his side. It’s bad enough that Y’shua himself had no teacher.”
“God is his teacher,” Mariam said firmly.
“I never saw God come down and teach him.”
“Watch what you say, Yacoboy!”

 

[RobinLayne]

Her reproof brought a measure of humility into his black eyes that made him look even more like the brother he was criticizing. “Well . . .” He hesitated, showing his mother more respect. “Let’s suppose that God is his teacher. All the more reason to have better students. Jerusalem is the Lord’s home. None of this twelve is from Jerusalem, and only one from the whole region of Judea. Mother, do you know what he’s about?”
She had to admit she did not.
“Revolution was practically invented by us Galileans. But if he wants to make himself king, why has he only Simon Zealotes among the patriot party?”
“Clopas’ Simon? Another cousin! Your father would have been proud of his nephew, too.”
“Please be objective for a moment. This is the most unlikely gang that any would-be messiah has ever gathered. You’re sure to have the one Judean, Yudas of Kerioth, looking down his nose on them all. And then—he tops it off by choosing a cursed tax collector!” His lips curled, no doubt at the memory of all that publicans had snatched from their poor family.
“That does sound strange,” Mariam said. “But what concern is it of yours who he chose? Do you wish you were one of them?”
“Not me! I want to learn at the feet of a real ruler of the Jews, not my own brother.” He fell silent, puffing and fingering his square black beard.
Yehudah, her youngest boy, turned his blue eyes on her and said, “There’s more. In the light of these chaotic choices, and the amazing things people have seen him do—Yacoboy suspects—“
“Spare her that!” broke in Yosef the Younger. “OWW!” He had cut his finger whittling a piece of wood.
Mariam grabbed a cloth. She went to him and touched patted his bleeding hand with it.
“It’s not serious,” Yosef murmured. The cut was small, but he was bleeding pretty steadily.
Mary gently mopped up the excess blood. “Even if you don’t agree with Yacoboy, you’re obviously upset, too. What is it, Yosef?”
He looked beyond her. “Mother . . . I’m afraid he’s gone out of his mind.”
Wrapping the fingers up, she said, “Go on.”
“You know it’s all around town that he . . . says Dad isn’t his father? Of course, nobody in Nazareth believes what he says about that! Who could?”
Mariam widened her eyes like a trapped bird.

 

[RobinLayne]

“Mother,” he said gently. “That was a long time ago.” Although he did not dare say it, Mariam knew he believed she and Yosef had conceived Y’shua during their betrothal. “I would defend your honor to the death,” whispered her husband’s namesake, laying his strong arm across her shoulders. She gazed up into his face. His disheveled brown hair and square nose looked so much like his father’s. Still, Mariam could not speak.
“It’s the next part that really shows he’s beside himself,” Simon said. “I don’t know what could have done this to him. Perhaps something happened while he was nearly starving himself in the desert.”
“Maybe something happened before he nearly starved himself,” Yacoboy said, “to drive him out into the wilderness like Nebuchadnezzar.”
“Tell me what’s worrying you!” Mariam demanded.
“It’s this, Mother. He’s said that people will know who his father is when they see him rise from the dead!”
Mariam felt suddenly sick.
“He’ll spread this crazy talk all over Israel if we don’t stop him,” Yosef said.
“Maybe we can help him before it’s too late,” Simon said. “Yacoboy can reason with him. You can ease his troubled mind, Mother, and remind him of the truth. You know how Rachel hangs on his every word, even though she’s been my wife for years. She could fall victim to his confusion, and so could many others. So many people have come to love Y’shua.”
Mariam sighed. “Yes,” she said at last. “He needs to come home. Although we may have to move elsewhere in order to keep him safe.” She finished removing the tapestry, put her weavings away, and left the house with her sons.
The talk about rising from the dead had her wondering whether they were right in saying he had gone astray in his mind. She could not doubt Y’shua was God’s chosen one, for it was she who was a virgin when she gave birth to him. Yet she was still a mother, and eternally fresh in her mind was a two-year-old shouting “No!” at a pair of squabbling strangers in the Alexandrian marketplace; a three-year-old falling out of a tree and giving her the scare of her life; and a four-year-old carrying his baby sister out the door toward the nearest cedar grove. Even the Son of God had needed earthly parents to shield him from danger, to comfort and to guide him. And maybe he needed her now. Maybe overwork or the stress of rejection had him talking of death and resurrection. Mariam, with the angel Gabriel’s words about his ruling the throne of his ancestor David ringing in her mind, was certain that, whatever he thought he was saying, Y’shua would never become king of Israel this way. So she intended to fetch him home, where she could pray for him and comfort him and see whatever else she might do to help set things right. All Israel, maybe all the world, might depend upon it!

 

[RobinLayne]

The family pursued a trail of rumors to Capernaum, where all they needed to do was follow the crowds to find him. “Wouldn’t you know he’d go where he’s popular!” Yosef the Younger said along the way.
“Can you blame him?” Yacoboy said. “I wouldn’t stay in a town that was calling me a bastard.”
Mariam winced. It still hurt, after all these years. What a burden God had laid upon her! Why did His most glorious work on earth have to be so painful and misunderstood? And why, oh why, had He chosen her? Her sons wanted everyone to believe that Yosef was Y’shua’s real father because they were protecting her! She withdrew further into herself and prayed for some relief.
“I’m surprised he set foot in Nazareth again,” Simon said, “after the time they dragged him out of the synagogue and tried to throw him off the hill.”
“I still don’t understand how he got away,” Yehudah said. “When I asked him why he wasn’t lying dead down on the rocks, all he said was, ‘My time has not yet come.’ That’s no real answer, if you ask me!”
Mariam, horrified at the thought of her beloved son crushed at the bottom of the hill upon which their town was built, said, “His Father saved him.”
Her sons stopped in their tracks and stared at her. “His father?”
“His Father preserved his life. Don’t believe the Lord will let Y’shua be killed! If what he said in the synagogue was blasphemy, he wouldn’t be alive today.”
The carpenters continued to stare at her. “Mother,” Simon said in amazement, “what has he done to you?”
There was much she wanted to say! He had entered her untouched womb and nearly caused her to lose her betrothed. He had brought a strange new star into the sky, and drawn strangers, poor and rich, native and foreign, to her door. He had brought her into Egypt and back. Most of all, he had come in answer to her desperate prayers for a Savior. Y’shua forbade her to tell anyone. Now what was she going to say, since she had just admitted him to be God’s Son?
“She means that Y’shua is a godly man, that’s all,” Yacoboy said. “It’s a poetic metaphor.”
Mariam looked at her feet. She hung back and let her sons walk before her. Yehudah stayed with her and tried to catch her eye. “Mother?” he said. “Is there . . something you’re not telling us?”
“It’s not for me to say,” she replied. Then she looked up at him. “Why don’t you ask Y’shua?”
The youngest made a face. “He doesn’t seem entirely trustworthy.”
“He’s perfectly trustworthy,” Mariam said quickly.
“Then why did you come with us?”
“To tell you the truth, son—I don’t know. But I can’t help worrying about him.”
“Me too,” Yehudah said. “Things are happening so fast. Maybe he needs a rest.”
The family soon reached the large house where Y’shua was teaching. People jammed around the outside so tightly the family could barely hear his voice and could not make out his words. “You go get him,” Yacoboy said to Yehudah. “You’re the smallest. You can fit through the crowd.” Mariam was actually the smallest, but her voice did not project like a man’s, and she was hanging back, not sure still wished to be involved. Yehudah pressed through the people. He was gone a long time, so Simon followed after.
Eventually, both returned. Yehudah was white-faced. “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it!” he kept saying under his breath.
“What is it? Isn’t he coming?”
The youngest met their eyes with an astonished and despondent look. “He’s disowned us!”
Mariam gasped.
“No!”
“That’s impossible!”
“What kind of—“
“Stop!” Mariam said. “That doesn’t sound like him. Give me his exact words.”
“Uh . . .” Yehudah looked at Simon.
“I heard it,” Simon said. The two reconstructed what Y’shua had said: “Who are my mother and my brothers? Here they are! Everyone who hears my Father’s words and does them is my brother and my sister and my mother.”
Yacoboy’s hands went to his hips. “Implying we don’t hear and do!” he fumed.
Mariam glanced at him and silently pondered Y’shua’s saying. She looked at each of her sons in turn and took a step backward. Y’shua’s words cut her to the quick. For the first time since Gabriel’s announcement, she considered the possibility that the gates of her own son’s kingdom might be shut to her. “I think . . . it’s not so much that he’s disowned us. Maybe we’ve disowned him!”
Yosef the Younger shook his head. “He’s beyond reason. We might as well just go home.”
“Go where you like.” Their mother pulled her veil about her face as if she were cold. “I’m going to my sister’s house for a while.” She turned and walked up the road toward the seaside home of Salome and Zebedee, where her nephews Yacobas and Yohannan had lived until they left all to follow her eldest son.
Mariam had some thinking to do.

 

[RobinLayne]

Zebedee, successful in his fishing business, also owned a large fruit grove, where Mariam now sat thinking. From her lone spot in the shade of an olive tree, she saw fishermen on the shore of the enormous Lake of Galilee, spreading their nets in the sun for mending. They should make stronger nets, she mused. Especially with my son around.
He can conjure droves of fish out of nowhere. He could do anything! So why is he so despondent he talks of dying?
I’ve . . . let him down somehow . . . I need his forgiveness. What was it I did? How can I make things right?
At one time in her life, she had heard God's voice clearly and known just what to do. "Oh Lord, my Lord," she prayed, gazing at the brilliant blue sky. "Where did I lose You?"
There had been times, now long past, when Mariam had been so overcome with the Spirit of God that adulation had poured from her lips with a music reminiscent of scripture itself.
Why did you leave me?" she cried out, suddenly starving to feel that blessed presence again.
The silence echoed her emptiness.
What happened? What made the difference in me?
She became aware that she pressed a hand against her belly and her stomach felt sour, as if it were empty.
It had been the child . . .
As long as she was pregnant with Y'shua, the peace and inspiration had remained. The spirit of that holy baby was united with her spirit. But after he was born, it wasn’t the same. She could hold him close and feed him at her breast, but he was no longer a part of her. He became part of the world instead. Gradually, in spite of all the excitement over the newborn Messiah and the visiting strangers with miraculous signs of their own to report, a sense of emptiness gnawed at her insides. Other mothers said it was a normal reaction to the end of pregnancy. She was surprised at that statement. Normal? What was normal about her pregnancy? She was with child before she had even married her husband; he was not even consulted ahead of time. Without committing a sin with a man, she had become a pariah for the sake of bringing the very Messiah of God into the world. She had known people would despise her for a sin she had never committed, but how could she have refused? Was there ever a girl who wanted Israel purged of sin and oppression as much as she? So she agreed to let the very Spirit of God impregnate her.

 

[RobinLayne]

After her very human womb had done its consecrated work, and even after her post-childbirth purification rites, Yosef had hesitated to consummate their marriage. It was not until she said, “Why do you reject me?” that he had dared to make love to her. She smiled fondly over the memory. How she loved her husband! How she missed him! She had expected from the beginning to be the ordinary wife of an ordinary man, and she could not imagine a better man with whom to live an ordinary life than Yosef, carpenter of Nazareth. Even though God had chosen her to bear and raise the Messiah, she never felt equal to the responsibility. Sweet, naive Yosef seemed to think otherwise. “Oh, Mariam, you are the most blessed woman that ever lived!” he had said. “I have no right to even touch what the Blessed has touched!”
“Then I suppose I have no right to ask you to bless me with the full rights of a wife?”
The dear man had actually blushed when she said that. “I just thought . . .” She felt she could almost read his mind in the long silence that had followed. His words may have been few, but the reverence in his eyes said everything. As he chewed on his lip, looking into her face on their sleeping mat, she could almost see his objections melt one by one. Like her, he had been willing to sacrifice something vital for Messiah’s sake.
Mariam tenderly stroked his bearded face. “I’m still your little Mariam. I still want to have your children. Sons of God are beyond me!”
Was that when I first began to reject Y’shua? Did I spread my attention too thin because he was too holy for me?
“Remember,” she had continued, “the angel told you not to be afraid to take me as your wife. I know this shepherd hospitality is no marriage feast, but must I remain an unwed mother forever? I’m not the Ark of the Covenant. See, I’m touching you, and you haven’t fallen down dead!”
Their laughter then broke the tension, and soon they were kissing, entwined in one another’s arms . . .

 

[RobinLayne]

Reflecting on all the problems that raising a family had brought them, Mariam now wondered for a fleeting moment what would have happened if she had not broken through Yosef’s reverent reserve. Surely, he would not have denied her forever, but what if she had remained a virgin all her life? No. Although no other pregnancy brought the joy (and sorrow) of that first nine-month miracle, she loved all her children. She couldn’t imagine not having them. And she had needed her husband, not just as a comforter. She had wanted to fulfill him, to draw him into the joy that God had given her. She could not let him remain outside the circle. Y’shua must have felt much the same way, for he was so drawn to the side of his father . . . No, she reminded herself. Yosef wasn’t his real father. Not in every sense of the word. And Y’shua never refers to him that way anymore. He may resemble a male version of me, but in his heart he is the express image of Another.
As for the children she bore to Yosef, how could she not be disappointed with them, starting as she had with one she could never rightly accuse of any wrong? Maybe her very praise of the firstborn was a rejection. “He’s a good boy,” she used to say. She never said that no other could attain his level of goodness. She had wanted the others to be like him, instead of just letting them be themselves. “After all,” she whispered under her breath, “not everybody can be the Messiah!”
Y’shua’s brothers, unable to compete with him, had given him no end of torment, teasing, defying, and accusing him all his life. For the first time, Mariam recognized her part in the abuse. It cut her to the heart. “What have I done? What offering can be made for this sin?”
She heard light footsteps. “Mariam! Why are you crying?” Her younger sister Salome, slim and quick-eyed, hurried to her side and grasped her hands.
“Oh, sister, I’ve led my children into bitterness, and I’m wishing Y’shua had stayed a baby forever!”
“I’m still having a hard time letting go of my Yohannan.” A dark, silky braid slipped out of her veil. Salome ignored it. “My youngest is still so young to leave us.”
“Your Yohannan is only sixteen. But Y’shua’s over thirty!”
“I expect no mother ever really lets go.”
“Salome. This is going to sound crazy, but I feel as if there’s something amiss about Y’shua being away from me. It doesn’t have to do with his growing up, it has to do with the fact that—well, frankly, the only time in my life that I was truly whole was when I was pregnant with him.”
“What?”
“I told you you’d think it was crazy. But in no time in my life was I closer to God.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. And it’s not that I’m trying to keep my son for myself. Really, Salome, I wish everyone could be pregnant with him!”
Her sister laughed. “I’ll not say you’re silly,” she said. “I remember the way you glowed when you were pregnant with him. I didn’t understand why. Now, I think I’m beginning to have an inkling . . . Mariam . . . can you tell me the cause?” She leaned toward the other woman.
Mariam studied her sister’s face. “Are you ready to believe me?”
“I’m ready to believe almost anything about your Y’shua. Your son, performing miracles. Teaching crowds. Confounding the wisest among us and standing up to the holiest frauds to rule the Hebrew people. I didn’t know there was anything special about him when he was a child, but now you say that pregnancy was some great spiritual experience. Why is that?”
When her question was met with silence, Salome said, “Or do you even know why? But you do know. I can tell by your expression.”
Mariam bit her lip. “I’m—forbidden to talk about it. Unless,” she added after a pause, “you believe to begin with.”
“How can I believe something I haven’t heard?”
“God can reveal it to you. Just as He did to me when the angel came and promised me the child.” Now she had said too much again. She simply could not seem to keep a secret anymore.
Salome stared at her sister with wide eyes. Her voice was thin, half-worried. “Mariam?

 

[RobinLayne]

Two years later, Mariam sat praying in the same rooftop room where Y’shua had eaten his last Passover before he himself had been sacrificed as the Lamb of God . That, she reflected sadly, was the sacrifice she had needed for her sins. His horrible death had left permanent lines on her face. To see the precious gift of God, her Y’shua, beaten, nailed onto two beams of wood, and at last laid to rest in a tomb, was to see hatred overcome the only hope of the world.
Yet now, she felt as if she could endure anything, for death itself was no barrier. Y’shua was alive once more! “If only he had stayed with us,” she said aloud.
“Yes,” her daughter-in-law Rachel said. Then Mariam felt sorrier for her than she did for herself. For though the young woman now carried her third baby in her arms, and though Simon was good to her, Mariam knew Rachel had never lost her childhood love for his eldest brother . . . he who had now returned to his Father in Heaven.
Simon prayed close by. Mariam could just imagine how he had felt when he had seen Y’shua alive again and run to get his wife. She looked over at Yehudah, whose blue eyes stared heavenward as if waiting for the Messiah to return as he had left them. And Yacoboy sat next to “the loudest mouth in Capharnum,” to whom he had run to be baptized after his amazing meeting with the resurrected Lord. Only Yosef the Younger had refused to join their number, unwilling to worship a God who punished the innocent to clear the guilty.
Rachel’s baby Joshua began to cry . . . again. He fussed often. Mariam took him in her arms and spoke to him softly. How familiar the face and little black curls! If it weren’t for this baby’s fussiness, she could almost pretend her wonder child was with her once again. But it wasn’t the same. Y’shua’s presence was a quality more than a face.
The crying continued. The disciples began to turn and frown.
“Will you and Simon keep track of Dina and Simeon while I soothe him outside?” Rachel asked, taking back her baby. Simeon stepped right into Miriam’s arms and looked at his mother with a dignified air. Dina skipped to her father, sat beside him, and lifted her eyes in prayer. Rachel left with her screaming little one.
Mariam sighed. Even if she were holding Y’shua in her arms, it would only have intensified that odd longing to have him once more in her womb. She was soon surprised to find herself crying.

 

[RobinLayne]

“Grandma, what’s wrong?” Simeon said.
She knew the boy would not understand. “Lord God,” she said, sobbing, “Help me!”
Suddenly her ears were filled with a sound like a hurricane, but she felt no wind. She looked up and saw a living flame spread over the room, dividing to settle upon each person. Her body shook with the power of God Almighty. She heard a voice whisper, “Woman!”
Y’shua!
Ever since he had come of age, Y’shua had called her that. From any other son, it might have been taken as an insult, but on his lips the word was as respectful as if she represented all that was good in womanhood. Sometimes it gently chided, as if she represented all that was annoying in the same. The love of God filled her now to overflowing. Mariam smiled as all around her she heard voices but could not understand most of the words. She felt as if she were in the midst of many nations shouting and singing praises to God. Little Simeon leapt up and danced for joy. Here was the same peace she had felt while she had carried the Son of God in her womb. Mariam hugged herself. The words tumbled from her lips: “I’m with child again.”
Yohannan turned and blinked at her. The youngest Apostle, into whose care she had been placed, had more to do than question her at the moment. But Mariam felt a soft, small hand on hers, and looked up into the smiling face of her sister Salome. “We all are, Mariam,” she said. “By way of the promised Holy Spirit, the son you blessed us with has entered all of us today!”
Mariam sighed. I’m so glad I’ve learned to trust him! What she had thought her most impossible desire he had just made reality! “Y’shua,” she said, “holy Son of God, say what you will. My tongue is yours.” She opened her mouth and began to speak.
What was this? An infant’s babble?
But when she noticed the languages enveloping her on all sides, even from the mouth of little Simeon, and then, out the window, the bewildered masses approaching outside—holy day visitors from countries all over the world--she understood what her Son was doing. The little seed once planted in her was growing into God’s vast vineyard.
God could have used anyone to begin His redemption of the world,” she thought humbly. The wonder of it all . . . he chose me!

 

[RobinLayne]

NOTE: Please excuse the changing of fonts in this story. I was using 12-point type, which came out at first as Font 2 on the posts, but randomly the site changed parts to Font 3. I changed them back. It didn't work on the final paragraph of the second-to-last scene. The fianl scene showed up in all Font 3, and I decided to keep it that way because it's easier to read and the event takes place years later than the former action.

 

[InHisPeace]

God could have used anyone to begin His redemption of the world,” she thought humbly. The wonder of it all . . . he chose me!

Wow!! What a great story!
You are very talented!! I'm sooo glad you decided to post part of your novel on here. I was blessed to read it.

They should make stronger nets, she mused. Especially with my son around.

This was one of my favourite lines!

If you have anyother short stories, I would love to read them!!

God bless!
~Steph

 

[RobinLayne]

Thanks. There's a modern one I'd like to post, but I want to save it for a publication that probably won't take it if it's already appeared online. But maybe some of the other stories... It will take more work to find and prepare other parts of the old novel. The only things I had to do with this one was break it up into reasonable sized posts. I like the way the story all fit neatly onto the first page of the thread.

 

[kisstheson]

Robin!

What a blessing it was to read your story. I loved your use of Hebrew names, character descriptions and dialouge. The line about the Galilean axcent on Capernaum was really cool. Everyones interactions was very believable.

I personally would love to read your stuff where we actually get to meet Y'shua. I would like to see your "take" on Him.

My two suggestion are that you have a chapter break when the story advances to Pentecost Sunday. And when Miriam goes to see Y'shua doesn't your story say that she left the home in charge of the sons, yet her sons are traveling with her to see thier older brother. I could be wrong.

This is a good piece of fiction. Thanks for sharing! Hope to read some more!

 

[RobinLayne]

No, it doesn't say she leaves the home in the charge of her sons. It says she puts away her weavings and leaves with them. This is presented as a short story, so it doens't have chapter breaks. There was, in the original short story, a space between each scene. Well, I will just have to type up something from my old novel so you can see Y'shua in action, but some things I am going to change from the way it was years ago, for some of my viewpoint has changed. Thanks, KisstheSon.

 

[RobinLayne]

I just got out the old manuscripts, Part 1 and Part 2, only to find that my first 4 chapters are GONE! I can't imagine what could have happened to them, unless they are in some file or pile somewhere where they were taken to a critique group many years ago. Amy, it's going to be harder to find these than it was for you to find your paintings, I think. If I ever do this side of Heaven . . . My home has so many papers, so many of them not organized. But I will look through and either find highlights to share or beginning posting all that I have. Do you want to hear about him as a little boy, a teen, or an adult?

 

[RobinLayne]

Okay, I'm going to post some scenes from Y'shua's childhood. They are still pretty rough, being old, but they'll give you an idea of where I was headed with this. I'll post them on another thread and let you know the link here and on the "beloved Jesus" thread.

 

[RobinLayne]

I have begun typing and posting. I've made a few improvement on the old manuscript in the process. Here is the link:
http://www.christianforums.com/t473...areth%94-an-unfinshed-novel.html#post31506400

 

[kisstheson]

I just got out the old manuscripts, Part 1 and Part 2, only to find that my first 4 chapters are GONE! I can't imagine what could have happened to them, unless they are in some file or pile somewhere where they were taken to a critique group many years ago. Amy, it's going to be harder to find these than it was for you to find your paintings, I think. If I ever do this side of Heaven . . . My home has so many papers, so many of them not organized. But I will look through and either find highlights to share or beginning posting all that I have. Do you want to hear about him as a little boy, a teen, or an adult?

[/quote]

All three! But I prefer the adult Yeshua!

I know it's pretty rotten when you lose original work. I lost a couple of original paintings in a flood I had back in 2005. It was a miracle that any of my paintings survived as they were under three feet of water for three days!

I pray that your work turns up some where.