Uplifting – Inklings Fiction

The Best Drug

If you were to walk in on this gray, gloomy night you’ll probably carry yourself in with an expectancy.

Rows of better-than-you’s, noses turned up from the hymnal. Perfect lives and families. Made obvious by their four kids dressed in their best without squabbles that test the patience of their parents.

You hesitate between the doors. You’ve seen it before. Pretending to care, or maybe silently judging you in the back pew.

Too often, unfortunately, it’s true. We pretend, somehow, we’re better than the rest. Granted, our salvation comes from God of his love, not because we’re good enough.

But it’s okay, you can breathe. Come on in. Take a seat.

As you glance around you see people, wild and Free. Lining up for the best drug deal and all of history.

“Some say he’s our crutch, I say he better be our all!” Grins the pastor laying hands on the next young man.

Maybe you’re a bit confounded, seeing all the hoodies, sweats, and T’s.

You’re still questioning whether you should flee. You take one last moment to soak and see a thousand Angels fluttering gracefully healing that single Mom’s broken heart. Dancing with the man, who you probably assumed, never would dare to dance in public.

Then you see the fires that frame their faces. Some bigger, well others fight it. It ministers to them, almost lifting their feet off the ground.

One step, two steps, oh, you can’t. The atmosphere is warm and sweet. “But it wasn’t meant for you.” rings through your mind. So you turn to run.

But something holds you there, a tap on your shoulder. “Brother, me too!” His hoodie is torn and arms plastered in tattoos, but his smile is big and eyes bright with hope.

He gives you a bear hug, smiles and shrugs. “I hope to see you next week!” He calls.

And somehow today got a little less gray. Maybe the world’s a little brighter.

You found your home it isn’t easy but it’s where you belong.

Maybe you’ve been hurt in the past a little burned by the church. But we’re not all the same.

The true love of God is richer than anything in the whole world.

5 out of 5 stars (based on 1 review)

April 12, 2021

Wow, love this! So real. Unfortunately and fortunately.
Well done!

Melinda Poling

Annamarie Rose

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A Mother’s Privilege

Bleary-eyed, she turned the spigot to fill up the sink and squeezed a dollop of Dawn into the warm water. She glanced at the microwave. The orange digits on it read 2:26.

Her son, just over three weeks old, had settled into a contented milky coma a few minutes before she’d come downstairs. But now she wanted to pump, and there were no clean parts to attach to the medela.

She sighed, trying not to think about anything in particular, and just watched the suds inch up over the pump flanges and bottles. The less she thought, the easier it was to get back to sleep. Ha. Her strategy rarely worked. She would be awake, unable to settle her mind, for the next hour or two, until he woke again. Then the hormones released when she fed him for the nth time would relax and lull her into sleepiness again.

Normally she washed everything before she turned in for the night, but a toddler who refused to eat what was on her dinner plate had distracted her from her fledgling routine. But this was motherhood, wasn’t it? At least with young children. Long days, late nights, early mornings, with sleep broken up into short intervals. She smiled and turned off the water. Six hours of uninterrupted sleep was a thing of the past, her pre-pregnant and childless past.

But she wouldn’t go back.

Her days and nights were sacred. Every diaper change, plate of bite-sized pieces, every breastfeeding, every burp, spit up, and minutes rocking were holy. Every minute was eternal, even if she spent her days cleaning up the same toys over and over and struggled to teach obedience and guide little but unfiltered emotions. The first few years of motherhood had been a difficult transition, but by God’s grace and patience, she was learning to look for Him and serve Him in every moment.

Right now, it was just her and God. Supposedly, the veil in-between the physical and spiritual was thinnest at 3am, and the most supernatural activity was purported to occur at this time. She smiled again. Holy Spirit certainly knew where to find her, she thought, scrubbing the inside of a bottle: in the middle of this very human and beautiful task of sustaining a life outside of the womb.

0 out of 5 stars (based on 0 reviews)

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Katie Jo Jayne

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Mara, Jaded No More

Mara trembled in Thesius’s grasp, his fingers vice gripping her upper arm as he pushed her toward the Teacher. But she didn’t shiver with fear. Perhaps she should’ve been afraid. But she wasn’t. She was furious, livid at the injustice of it all.

What of the coward who stood at the fringes of the assembling crowd, watching her anxiously, unsure what was to come of her? He said he loved her, but there he stood, sweating like an unclean swine, awkwardly hiding his embarrassment beneath his cloak’s hood and feigning indifference concerning her.

Remembering his declarations of love just hours before now turned her stomach as if she’d caught wind of fresh human feces.

Why was he not next to her, cheeks red in shame? Why was he not stripped of his hastily-donned cloak to reveal his guilty state of undress? Why was his WIFE not brought as a witness against him?

She had blown her future on this fool, and she despised herself for trusting him.

Mara’s unkempt blonde hair fell into her face, mostly covering the glare aimed at Thesius, the Pharisee who’d dragged her here. How convenient that the law always faulted the woman and mentioned no consequence whatsoever to the man.

Thesius let her go, and she locked her jaws shut to avoid spitting on him. That would’ve gotten her stoned for sure.

Mara looked up at the man called Jesus, eyes narrowing in suspicion of the calmness he exuded. Probably another self-righteous wanna-be rabbi. In one glance, she noted his somber brown eyes, worn sandles, leather belt, and clean but unembellished tunic, and, surprisingly enough, his rough workers hands. Guess he hadn’t always been a rabbi in training.

“Teacher,” Thesius gestured to Him, “this woman was caught in the VERY act of committing adultery! In our Law, Moses commanded that such a woman must be stoned to death. Now, what do you say?”

Standing before the quieted crowd, Mara was familiar enough with the petty jealousy among Pharisees to hear the skepticism and borderline mockery in his query to Jesus. What had this Jesus done to unsettle him?

Jesus knelt down in front of her and began to write in the sand with his left pointer finger.

“Well, what do you say, Jesus of Nazareth??” One of Thesius’s companions prompted again, his impatience obvious. He tossed a stone: up, down. Up, down. Back and forth between both hands. Condemnation. Judgement.

Momentarily forgetting her anger and frustration, Mara watched as Jesus spelled out a name: Tirzah. And then another. Rivkah. And another. Lydia. Mara’s eyebrows rose and her mouth gaped in astonishment. She knew each one of those women…and of their relationships with the Pharisees in this very crowd.

The men closest to her–the ones who knew the women–shifted uncomfortably and stepped backward, the sudden tension and discomfort tangible.

This Jesus KNEW. He knew their hypocrisy. He knew of their unholy behavior and knew the names of the ones with whom they’d committed it with.

Surely he was more than just a teacher. A prophet. A seer.

“Whichever one of you has committed no sin may throw the first stone at her,” he said, rising again, wiping his hand on his tunic as he rose to his feet. He met her incredulous gaze for a moment before lifting his eyes to the crowd expectantly.

The Pharisees, three in particular, quickly dropped their stones and disappeared into the crowd. Within a full minute, a multitude of stones were all the remained of the circle of accusers.

“Woman, does no one condemn you?”

“No, my Lord,” Mara said quietly.

“Then neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.”

5 out of 5 stars (based on 1 review)

April 21, 2021

I thoroughly enjoyed this well-known Bible story from the perspective of the woman. Stories like this help us remember that these were real people with real hopes, real dreams and real feelings. I loved the author’s idea of the words that Jesus wrote – very plausible! Thank you, Katie Jo Jane..

Emma

Katie Jo Jayne

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The Lost Scrolls

Her fingers trembled as soon as the old, old scroll passed into her hands. She couldn’t see him very well in the dank light of the lantern, but her grandfather’s eyes glinted like gold flecks in a Klondike stream. They’d found them!!! It had been two years of grueling 10-hour days and nothing to show for it. Until today.

For two years they had slept on the floor of the wind-hollowed cavern, awakened in the night by cougars and coyotes. For two years they’d eaten rice and fire-baked paratha with whatever wild game Mandy had been able to hunt. For two years they had bathed downstream in the lukewarm water of the desert creek, and for two whole years they’d potted and sanitized the water from upstream to drink. They were all over sun-burnt and sand-whipped, and had sand grit in every possible bodily crevice, but they smiled at each other like two teenagers in punch-drunk love.

They had found the lost scrolls of Christ.

“Go on,” he urged, wiping his sweaty hands on his worn khaki shorts.

Most scholars didn’t even believe they existed. But they had gone on a hardly anything but a hopeful whim.

Mandy sat on one of the cavern’s rock ledges and slowly lowered the scroll into her lap. Ever so slowly she unraveled it. And exhaled. “Grandfather, it’s in Hebrew.” Disappointment laced the twenty-year-old’s words. Sighing, she took her grandfather’s seventy-year-old hands and tucked the cherished scroll into them. “Please read it aloud.”

He pulled down the glasses that had been stored on his greying head and cleared his throat. “I have been commissioned to take out the enemies of my father who have usurped his kingdom and stolen from the ones he loves.” He blinked. “It’s a list, dear girl.” He glanced at his granddaughter, eyes wide. “It appears to be a…hit list…of a sort. Turn the lantern up higher, would you?”

Mandy scrambled to the lantern, tweaked the dial, and her grandfather continued in his steady, awe-stricken baritone.

“Sickness.

Unbelief.

Fear.

Envy.

Murder.

Theft.

Lust.

Abuse…”

The older man continued to read for a whole two minutes. And then he paused. “There’s one final listing.”
“What is it?”

He took the glasses off. “Death.”

Mandy’s eyes filled with tears. “And he did it.”

“Yes, he did.” Grandfather lowered the lenses once more and pushed them further down on his nose, squinting to read the final line. “For the fame of my father and the glory of his name, I will do this.”

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Katie Jo Jayne

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Bad News

Alright, I have bad new. 🙁 If you’re seeing this, then there aren’t enough stories in the genre you want to check out! I know, it’s sad. But, there’s good news. What is it? YOU can write a story! Yes, you! Everyone has a story in them. No, we might not be the best at first, but we’re humans and we’re made to learn. Made to adapt. Made to create.

If I was able to convince you, then please be sure to check out the page Write With Us and start going through the stories you’ve already written! 😀

The Best Drug

A Mother’s Privilege

Katie Jo Jayne

Mara, Jaded No More

Katie Jo Jayne

The Lost Scrolls

Katie Jo Jayne

Bad News

"Go Forth and Write." Isaiah 30:8