Eden Hill by Bill Higgs

promised that all things are for your sakes. Are you worried about tomorrow? All things are for your sakes.”
    His voice was calm and steady. Talking, not shouting. “Are you staggering under financial burdens? All things are for your sakes. Are you grieving over a flagging relationship with a spouse, a friend, a child? All things are for your sakes.”
    The reverend hardly dared to look up, but when he did, he saw curious and interested faces. Certainly there were scattered glassy-eyed stares and some looks of surprise, but more than a few were, if not hanging on his every word, at least attentive and engaged. Listening. Leaning forward in anticipation, not shrinking back in fear.
    Reverend Eugene Caudill suddenly realized the difference. He wasn’t angry anymore. At God or for God. It may not be fiery rhetoric, but it was hitting home, and God was showing himself faithful yet again.

O N D ECEMBER 24, in spite of the snow and mud, a large truck carefully backed the pastel mobile home into its new location in Eden Hill. The electrician hooked up the wiring and turned on the lights, the propane man tied in the gas and lit the pilot, and the water and septic were connected. The driver had fitted a metal stairway up to the front door, and JoAnn hung a small wreath under the little round window.
    “Well, JoAnn, we’re here by Christmas. Just as I promised.” Cornelius stuck the small evergreen he’d cut from the back fencerow into an abandoned flowerpot, and draped a single string of colored lights around its branches.
    She threw her arms around him and gave him the closest thing to a bear hug that an expectant mother could manage,and a grin sprang across his face. Moments like this made him want to promise her the world.
    “Neil, it’s Christmas Eve. Let’s go to the Christmas pageant at the church next door? The sign out front said it starts at seven thirty.”
    He broke their embrace and looked at the aging building next door with its sagging roof and crumbling front steps. Christmas pageant? Something inside balked at the idea. The only pageant he knew about was Miss America, and he certainly wasn’t up for Bert Parks. Or maybe it was his father’s distaste of anything religious, or his own stubbornness. Whatever the case, one look at his wife’s earnest eyes filled with longing, and all his aversion melted away.
    “Yes, JoAnn, I think we can.”

    “Hurry up, Vee,” Mavine called up the steps, wrapped in her coat and scarf. “We can’t be late for the Christmas pageant, and we want to see the Stacys’ decorations first.”
    Virgil shook his head, hoping she wouldn’t see. He never quite saw the point of the outrageous display. For most folks in Eden Hill, Christmas looked pretty much like any other early winter day, only a little more festive. Gladys put candles in the windows of the Glamour Nook, and he’d put out the big sign with the life-size picture of Santa Claus holding an automobile battery   — If your car isn’t ready to start, ask Santa for a Reddy-Start   —but most just put up a tree and a few ornaments and let it go at that.
    Not so with the Stacys. The grocery sparkled with red-and-green tinsel garlands, strings of colored lights illuminated the checkout counter and the lunch meat case, and bells of silver paper dangled from the ceiling next to the flypaper. Their house was equally overdone.
    On Christmas Eve the entire town liked to drive by to see the spectacle before attending the pageant at the First Evangelical Baptist Church; it gave them something to talk about while waiting for the piano music to change to “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” which was the cue to get quiet. Eden Hill’s own Christmas parade.
    “Virgil T. Osgood Jr., it’s time to go!” The boy was stubborn, a trait he’d inherited from his father.
    Vee finally sauntered down the steps, dragging an old Welgo shopping bag and looking despondent. Virgil checked his watch. “We’ve only got twenty minutes before