Review: An Unexpected Glory is an unexpected joy.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 1, 2013
The short Christmas story, An Unexpected Glory by Marcia Lee Laycock, was an unexpected joy. I was surprised how avidly I read the pages, not wanting to miss a line in what was happening to the residents of New Life Shelter for Men.Only eight days before Christmas Pastor Steve gets a phone call from Public Health. The Christmas pageant they've sold 300 tickets for, has to be cancelled due to a measles outbreak. Even the orchestra that was lined up can't come. The Christmas pageant is the shelter's main fundraiser. Without the pageant the shelter is in danger of closing.The only solution is to try and put the pageant on with the help of the residents. A host of wonderful characters shine in this story. Pastor Steve and his secretary, Milly, and Stanley who used to be a resident of the shelter.But the characters who steal the show are the current-day residents, most of them scruffy, some of them smelling like a brewery. There's Charlie One-note with his wooden recorder, the tall thin guy with dreadlocks matted under a baseball cap who plays a battered saxophone, and Johnson and Peter JollyWhat a surprise to read a Christmas miracle, brought about by prayer and expecting God to step in when we're on the skids.