Romance, suspense, drama. I recently read a book that checked all the boxes. This story wasn’t in the latest beach read or best-seller – it was in the Bible. The book of Esther reads like the best novel. It’s a juicy, plot-driven story, a tale that’s true and enduring.

I love a good story. Stories of yesterday and today, stories of the epic and the everyday. Stories are at the core of our humanity. They’re the common thread running through our lives, across centuries and cultures. Stories are how we process life, how we share it with others, how we learn, and how we go on.

Stories can lift our gaze from our own preoccupations and broaden our perspective. They offer a reprieve from daily stressors, mindless tasks, and endless distractions. Stories, both on the page and screen, can inform, inspire, entertain. Stories shared orally keep us connected to one another throughout the shifting scenes of life. Good stories can enrich us as we seek to more fully live out our own story.

I have devoured countless good stories. I love each plot point of Pride and Prejudice, each ball, each letter, each conversation with electric undercurrent. I love sinking my teeth into a good mystery. Wilkie Collins, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Agatha Christie are some favorites. And more recently, Richard Osman
and Robert Thorogood, whose adaptations are soon coming to the screen.

For novels, I love the light-hearted fun of Sophie Kinsella and the expert wittiness of Alexander McCall Smith. I love spending summers on Nantucket with Elin Hilderbrand.

I remember being held captive by The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, unable to put it down as midnight came and went. I remember the exact moment I read the plot twist to end all plot twists: the boathouse scene in Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.

And I remember vividly coming to the last page of The Silmarillion, Tolkien’s masterpiece. It’s the story he started writing in a notebook in World War 1, one he returned to throughout his life, and was published posthumously by his son and literary executor. This is the story that undergirds and entwines all his other works of Middle-earth. It’s the grand mythology he set out to create for and dedicate to England. It is his magnum opus, and it is magnificent.

Although I have read it many times over the years, I will never forget finishing that first read. I was on my lunch break, sitting on a bench outside the Capitol in Tallahassee. It was springtime. Lush pink azaleas and trees laden with Spanish moss were my backdrop. Birds serenaded me as the sun warmed my skin. It could not have been a more sublime reading environment. And there I came to the final pages. The last ship sailed, and there was the end of the Elves on earth. I was utterly transfixed.

And lately, I have enjoyed reading All Creatures Great and Small and the others in the series of James Herriott’s memoirs – an endearing account of his days as a veterinarian in the North of England in the 1930s. The reader follows him all across the Yorkshire Dales, from one farm to the next.

We encounter ewes in labor, cows with bovine disease, and one pampered Pomeranian who is a most beloved family member of a wealthy widow. We meet farmers who fancy themselves more of an expert on animals than any vet but who always invite him in for “a cup o’ tea” or “a bite o’ supper” once his work is done. You can’t help but fall in love with all the characters he introduces, both two-legged and four-legged.

And you can’t help but fall in love with the land. In my mind’s eye, I can see the purple heather on the high fells, the lush green hills dotted with sheep. Herriott takes the reader right along with him as he drives out to each call. We stand in the barn with him, peering over his shoulder. We follow in his footsteps as he trudges through snow. We easily imagine the beauty of life lived among such wholesome
people in such an enchanting place.

I love stories such as these. I love immersing myself in the tale as it unfolds scene by scene. And I love how a good story stays with you long after the last page is turned.

And most of all, I love the stories in Scripture – stories like Esther that are even more meaningful because they are true. They are real. The words of Scripture are “living and active” (Hebrews 4:12). Words that ring true for all eternity. Words written on my very heart.

These are the stories that I return to the most, words I love to re-read, words forever archived in my soul. These are stories that stay with me. The words of Scripture inspire, encourage, challenge, remind, soothe, fortify, and focus me. No other work moves me the way the Bible does. Its words are spirit, and they are life (John 6:63). The best story of all.