A shilling rolls away and is lost amid the shadows of a room where three siblings spend an evening together. The youngest, Nancy, searches frantically for the missing coin while her brother Tom remains indifferent from his corner of the sofa. It is their elder sister Mary who quietly intervenes, fetching a small lamp whose beam immediately illuminates the dark corner where the coin has come to rest beside the coal scuttle. The episode becomes the occasion for a gentle spiritual reflection. Mary explains that the scene mirrors a recent experience of her own, in which she had been unable to discern what God wished her to do. She had searched through experience, expediency, wishes, and obstacles alike, and found nothing, until she recognised that what she lacked was not more searching but more light. Turning to Scripture, she found her answer shining clearly, just as Nancy's shilling had shone once the lamp was brought near. The verse she had found, calling the believer to commit their way to the Lord and trust that He will act, had resolved her uncertainty entirely. The moral drawn is simple and warmly presented: when a person finds themselves in difficulty and cannot see the way forward, the cause is often insufficient light rather than insufficient effort, and that light is available to anyone willing to seek it in the Word of God.
By Catharine Shaw · First published 2006 · Genre: Mystery, Crime Fiction, Detective Fiction