The New Guideposts Christmas Treasury (3) Tells ...  PRO

The New Guideposts Christmas Treasury (3) tells a story of a little girl was wasn’t easy to love. Her name was Phyllis, and her Sunday School Teacher tells this story about her:

"Phyllis wasn’t an easy child to love...sometimes I did wish she wasn’t in the particular Sunday School class that I taught...She never sat still. She hated to be touched, and she always had to have the last word."

Her teacher tried to give Phyllis a speaking part, but Phyllis refused ""I’m probably going to a party that night," she said grandly. "Lord," I prayed silently, "please help me love Phyllis". "Well I do have a few more parts if you change your mind." "I won’t" Phyllis said, and she didn’t."

At the rehearsal, the teacher heard ""Mary doesn’t act like she’s going to have a baby" muttered a husky little voice behind me. Phyllis might not have any desire to be in the program, but she wouldn’t miss the rehearsal. "Shhhh" I whispered, reaching back to pat Phyllis’s hand. She jerked it away, saying "Okay Okay"

In the last scene, only a spotlight shone on the holy family, and the children hummed "Silent Night". It was beautiful-- but who was that moving in front of the manger? Phyllis You never knew where that child was going to pop up next. Now she stuck her hand into the manger, squeezed the doll’s arm, and disappeared back into the shadows.

"Phyllis", I called, "what are you doing uup there?"

"I’m just looking," she said, "Besides it’s not a baby. It’s just a doll. I felt it."

"Lord, please help me love Phyllis".

...By 6:45 the air was bristling with excitment backstae...There was no Phyllis to be seen and I began to relax... As the organ chimed the beginnning of the service, I took my prompters seat in the front pew. With the opening strains of "Watchman, Tell Us of the Night", the lights came up on the manger scene, and the narrator began...

I felt something bump my knee and give a little shgove. "Move over," muttered an all too familiar voice. "I decided not to go to the party."

... The angels sang to the shepherds. The shepherds went to Bethlehem and took a lamb for the baby. The wisemen went to see herod and then to the stable. And Mary sat there, "pondering these things in her heart." It was lovely. Phyllis sat beside me so quietly that I forgot all about her, and when I realized...