Two From Galilee

 
A brief synopsis:

This is the story of two real people whose lives were touched by God: two people chosen by God to provide an earthly home for His Son. Here are Mary and Joseph-a teenage girl and a young carpenter-alone, frightened, in love, faced with family conflict, a hostile world and an awesome responsibility. It is a story for young and old alike; for everyone who finds the Christmas tale a source of timeless beauty and wonder, a compassionate, emotional novel of divine love.

From Misty:

Two From Galilee was published in 1982.  I was around twelve when I first read this book.  It has now been a long time since I have read it, but I think of it a lot, more than just at Christmas time.  This novel did something to me, changed something in me or lit it like a fire.  Two From Galilee was my first taste of historical fiction, and looking at it from my perspective now, as a writer of historical fiction, I have to say it has probably influenced me a lot more than I realize now or could have even imagined then.

In the basement of our house growing up, there was this creepy dark hallway that led to the third downstairs bedroom, the one with two large closets in which it seems we never did store very much.  But the entire length of the creepy hallway was a closet...or maybe just a set of shelves (anyone remember better than me?) that held pretty much the world because it was full of books--old, dusty, mostly unused books.  But they weren't unused.  I used them.  Mom and Dad had an entire set of encyclopedias down there!  They probably cost the earth at the time, but this is the way people learned things before there was Google.  If you need more information about what an encylopedia is, you can read about it Here.  And anyway, I have no idea how Two From Galilee ended up down there--probably someone gave it to them--but I swiped it one day and read and internalized it.

I could try to do a book review on it, but I'm thinking that would be about twenty five years too late.  I don't know what I would say now, if I would say it was "good."  What I do know is it left an impression.  A lasting one.  So no, no book review, but what I could do is get my hands on a copy and read it again.

In case I don't get back to the blog this week, I'll say now that I hope you all have the merriest of Christmases.  I hope the spirit of Christmas finds its way to your heart and Santa Claus finds his way to your home.