The Blessings Jar

David Baden feels unworthy of love...

For years, Anna Hertzler has dropped slips of paper into The Blessings Jar on her dresser... each one a prayer of someday becoming Mrs. David Baden. Unfortunately, David barely seems to notice her, unless she's serving him a meal at her parents' Let's All Eat diner.

Not only has David noticed her, he admires the hard-working beauty who gave up teaching to care for her now-disabled parents and manage their struggling eatery. With a woman like that beside him, his life would be complete. She thinks their 8-year age difference explains why he keeps his distance. Better to let her think it, he tells himself, than see the warmth she shows him turn cold should she learn about the wicked secret he's hiding.

Anna has a secret, too: Years earlier, she'd witnessed the event that explains why David sometimes stares into space, looking terrified... and ashamed. Horrified by what she'd seen, young Anna sought her mother's advice: "A truth like that," the woman said, "will cause big trouble, so you must never, ever repeat it!"

As Christmas approaches, the prayer slips in her blessings jar ask for courage. She loves David too much to watch him suffer any longer.

Her confession could stir up trouble and make him resent her for not telling him sooner.

Does she love him enough to risk losing him in order to free him from his dark secret?