Dear readers of this weekly column, I very much appreciate you. So, between now and the end of the year, please enjoy a Christmas story in four installments, my gift to you and your family!
I'm not sure how Erica, Harley, Avery, Bristol and Luke came to be out in the forest in the dead of winter, but there they were. Five children, dressed all in red, leaving five sets of little footprints in the deep white snow. Overhead, the bright moon was beaming down through the snow-covered boughs of the giant fir trees, making them sparkle like a billion tiny Christmas lights. The clouds had just recently parted, having exhausted themselves in covering the world of these children in white. Why were they there? Who were they? None of them knew. They knew it was Christmastime, whatever that was, but they could not remember mothers or fathers or beds or kitchen tables or warm baths or clean sheets under fluffy blankets. Five children, dressed all in red, walking through snow of white, under a black sky, with no memory of the warm colors of home.
Many miles away, on the other side of the forest, walked another six children all dressed in black: Ashtyn, Gianna, Kainalu, Kahoku, Mason and Imirie. None of these children seemed to know who was leading the way or even if there was a way. Like the first set of children on the other side of the forest, these children did not know where they came from or where they were going. So they followed the pathway, small though it was, while their black mittens just kept knocking snow off the tree branches as they passed by.
Back on the other side of the forest, the children in red continued to trudge wearily along. As they did, they began to hear an unmistakable noise up ahead of them, the sound of fast-running water. Louder and louder its roaring grew until finally they were standing on the banks of a wide, cold, dangerous river. "There's only one thing we can do," said Bristol, "We have to turn around and go back the way we came."
Harley, though, put a quick stop to that talk. "We can't. Look!" All of the others looked at his arm pointing back, and a collective gasp went up from all four. Behind them, as if by magic, the snow had fallen yet again. They had been walking under the moonlight of the clear sky, but the snow had fallen just feet behind them every step of the way. There were no tracks, no trail, no way at all to find the pathway they had just been walking on. And it was then that they heard a voice, and each of the five jumped in fright knowing that it was not from any of them. They quickly turned and saw a little boy and a little girl holding hands and staring at them. The little boy loudly said, "I SAID, WHY DON'T YOU JUST CROSS THE BRIDGE?"
Hunter and Kylie -- those were the names of these two new children who now stood in the woods across from the five children in red. They were brother and sister, and they were dressed all in white. Bristol was the first one to speak up and say what all of the others were thinking: "What bridge? I don't see a bridge."
"It's right there," said Hunter. "Right by that big rock."
As their eyes followed his arm and instructions, all five sets of them grew wider.
"Do you mean," said Erica, "that skinny little log across the river?"
On the other side of the forest, the children in black continued to walk along. They were cold, they were scared, and they were hungry, and they still could not remember why they were in the woods to begin with, or where they came from, or how to get out. It was at that moment that Kainalu saw something that he could scarcely believe that he was just now seeing. It was as if it had appeared from out of nowhere.
"Look!" he cried, "A berry bush! We don't have to be hungry anymore," and he leaped for the bush. But he didn't quite make it. He thunked right into a stout little body. It was brave little Mason who had come between him and the bush. Kainalu got up crossly and said, "Now what'd you go and do that for? There's enough berries for all of us; you don't have to get all selfish!"
"I'm not getting selfish," said Mason, "I'm trying to help you. We don't know one thing about those berries. What if they're poison?"
As they started to argue, though, they heard a new voice saying, "When I'm thinking about food, I reach into my pack and get some!"
They whirled around and saw a little boy of about 7, dressed in purple. He was smiling, chewing on an apple, and although his clothing was shabby and poor, he did not seem to mind at all being out in the cold.
In yet another area of the forest, there was yet another group of children, and as you may have guessed by now, they had no idea where they came from or where they were going. They were dressed all in yellow, and this larger group of children had names like Miley, Carter Hope, Kadence, Arianna, Aiden, Billy, Kenneth, Graylyn, Faith, Raven, Erica, Davey, Owen, Carter, Cooper, Lillian, Faith, Champ, Trystn, Emmanuel, Carson, Kaden, Jack, Zeke, Eric and Christopher.
They, too, trudged wearily through the snow, leaving a wide path with their many feet, and seemed to be being herded along by the trees of the forest along the path that it wanted them to take. Davey had just suggested that they build a fire for warmth, but that had brought cries of "What's a fire?" from Carter Hope and Briana. Arianna and Billy and Aiden tried to explain it to them, but even after doing so, Kenneth and Graylyn and Faith pointed out that they had no matches. Between all of them, the entire contents of their pockets was three sticks of gum, a piece of lint of unknown origin, two Kleenexes, a frog and a green Jolly Rancher.
Faith and Erica were busy taking turns carrying little Raven because her feet were cold all the way up to the knees, and it didn't seem like she could walk much further. If they didn't find a way to get warm soon, she was going to be in some serious trouble. Finally, Lillian took off her thin yellow jacket and handed it to Raven.
Little Raven looked up at her and said, "But you'll get cold and maybe get real sick!"
To which Lillian replied, "Oh, don't worry. I'm used to the cold."
She really wasn't, but she didn't want little Raven to worry.
Bo Wagner is pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church of Mooresboro, North Carolina, a widely traveled evangelist and the author of several books available on Amazon and at wordofhismouth.com. Email him at 2knowhim@cbc-web.org.