Pebbles in the Sand

Have you ever been the least bit curious about, as Paul Harvey used to put it, 'the rest of the story'? Has it ever occurred to you that the lives of some of the people in the gospel stories went on after their chance (or maybe not so unplanned) encounter with the Messiah? It is a question that has plagued me since I was small. Yes, we have some accounts and even extrabiblical information about several of the main characters in the gospels, but what about the characters who are not so important to the main storyline? I posit that they are as important in God's eyes since we are "more important than the birds of the air and the flowers of the field" (Matthew 6:26c-29 paraphrase). So then, whatever happened to the boy who gave Jesus his small supply of loaves and fishes and watched them turn into a feast for the multitude? Where did the Gerasene demoniac go after the swine made off with the Legion? How did Jesus' conversation with the woman at the well effect later events in the Samaritan town of Sychar? These are some of the questions I attempt to answer in this book. For this manuscript, I use stories from all four gospels and a vivid imagination coupled with actual knowledge of the traditions and culture of the time of Jesus. Since accounts of these 'lesser' beings are not found in actual historical records, some liberties have been taken such as naming the nameless or giving families to those who may not have had one in the Bible story. Perhaps there will occur, in these musings, a deeper appreciation of how, just as rocks and seaweed on a beach change the action of the waves against the shoreline, these characters - little 'pebbles in the sand' - may have helped to shape Christ's life and message in a sometimes profound way.