The Bread of Life

And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst." John 6:35

"I am the living bread which comes down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of this world." John 6:51

"But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks us you. And form him who takes away your goods do not ask them back. And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise." Luke 6:21

Anastasia Tremaine sat in a strait back chair in her room next to the window with the curtains drawn back, allowing the sunlight to flood the room and provide plenty of reading light for the letter she held in her hands. The sunshine shone on her bright red hair and homely face. Outside the sun reflected on the shining white snow that covered the ground and trimmed the trees, bushes, roofs and windows of the buildings. After a brief glimpse outside Anastasia turned back to her letter and read it eagerly. It was a love letter from her first and only sweetheart, the village baker named Ben Miller. It read:

My Dearest Anastasia,

I hope your mother is not too angry with you for continuing our relationship. I know she wants you to marry a gentleman of wealth and title, but you should choose the man who makes you happy. Money cannot buy happiness, although so many have tried. My family has always believed in marrying for love. I know your mother has a heart somewhere and she really does love you as her child.

I do not believe she will carry out her threat to expel you from the house if you continue to see me. If she does, you can live with my parents and me. Ever since my sister got married and left home we've had an extra bedroom. Since it is winter, I don't think your mother would be cruel enough to throw you out into the cold.

Christmas is coming, I have always loved Christmas ever since I was a little boy it is my favorite holiday. I will be very busy this time of year making holiday treats to sell to the public. Of course I will take time off for you. I will make you some of my very best Christmas cookies, gingerbread houses, bon-bons, Yule log cakes, Christmas pies and eggnog for you. Maybe once your mother tastes my Christmas goodies she will not think my cooking is inferior anymore.

I'm glad you got to meet my family, although they really would like to get to know you better. I wish you could come to church with us at our little church, Christ Alliance Church that is near the Evergreen Park with the large Christmas tree on Nightingale Street. Please come for the service on Sunday, December seventh. It will be special. I hope to see you there. I love you very much you are special to me. I hope this Christmas will be the best you've ever had, and the magic of the season will last forever in our love.

With all my love, yours truly,

Ben Miller

Anastasia finished reading the letter and was about to fold it up when her sister Drizella came into the room and snatched the letter from her hand.

"What's this?" She began to read the letter. "Oh, it's from your lover-boy. Mother, Anastasia's still seeing that baker!" Drizella ran form the room with the letter, and Anastasia chased her. "Give it back, it's mine!"

Drizella ran down the hall and down the stairs with the letter. Anastasia ran after her. "Come back here, that's my letter!"

"Mother, Anastasia has a love letter from that fat dough-boy shopkeeper you told her not to see!" Drizella called out.

Lady Hortense Tremaine heard the commotion and came to the staircase, to see Anastasia trip and fall and come rolling down the stairs, knocking Drizella down and bringing her falling down the stairs with her. They landed in a heap of magenta and chartreuse-yellow skirts at the bottom of the staircase.

"Owe!" both girls said. Lady Tremaine took the letter from Drizella and carefully pocketed it.

"Really girls, you should be more careful." She said, but she did not bother to help them get up.

"Get off me!" Drizella said to Anastasia. Anastasia slowly and painfully got to her feet. She had some bruises from falling down the stairs.

"Well, Anastasia, I see you continue to defy me by receiving letters from that shopkeeper you went to the ball with. Do you really think that a mere baker will make the sort of husband you truly desire? Can he support you in the manner you are accustomed to? Can he supply you with fine dresses and jewels, and a proper house to live in? What sort of place do you think you'd live in as the wife of a baker? You will have no servants and you might even have to live with his family, you will have to perform daily chores and be polite to his family and the customers in his shop. You will have to stoop to bowing and scraping to the commoners who shop at his bakery so he will not loose his business." Her mother narrowed her pale green eyes in her narrow face, with lines around the eyes and mouth. She had her iron gray hair shot with silver kept in the pompadour style that made her face look even more intimidating. Lady Hortense Tremaine wore a high-necked silk dress of maroon with a square violet collar and cuffs.

Anastasia stood before her mother and twisted her hands together nervously. She had hands that were not the pretty, dainty little hands of a fine lady, but were too big and rough, clumsy hands with long fingers that had big knuckles and fingernails that tended to break off easily. Her mouth felt dry, hot and stuffy. She knew she had to stand up to her mother.

"I imagine it wouldn't be so bad." She said quietly. "Ben is a very successful baker. After all, now that Cinderella is gone I have to do the chores here anyway."

"Hey, I do chores too, ya know!" Her sister interrupted with her hands on her hips.

"So, you still persist with this romance. Very well, we will see where it leads. It may be that it will break up on its own, and you will learn your lesson with your very first heart break." Her mother turned and walked coldly away, the sound of her ebony cane thumping on the marble floor made her shudder.

Not knowing what to do, Anastasia sought her stepsister Cinderella's advice. Cinderella had once acted as servant and maid to her stepmother and stepsisters after her father died. Lady Tremaine pressured Cinderella's dying father to sign a will that made her the inheritor of the estate so that Cinderella would lose her inheritance after her father died. Hortense Tremaine inherited the manor and Cinderella had to work to earn her keep if she wanted to stay. Anastasia wondered why she submitted to doing all the manual labor and household chores necessary to keep the family going. Why did she put up with such abuse, with the constant demands, orders, insults, hard work, and threats, when she could have left and gotten a better job? Yet through it all, Cinderella remained kind and cheerful, she worked hard to keep the house clean and a good meal on the table and never complained. Why?

Cinderella was finally rewarded when she received the opportunity to go to a ball at the royal castle and dance with the prince. No one knows where she got her beautiful sparkling pale blue ball gown and glass slippers, or where her magnificent carriage and its handsome prancing white horses and coach men came from. She greatly impressed the prince, and they fell deeply in love after meeting that one time. The prince was determined to have Cinderella for his bride; he would marry only her. At midnight she fled from the royal castle for reasons unknown, leaving behind a tiny glass slipper. The slipper was his only clue to Cinderella's identity, so the prince had every maiden in the kingdom try on the slipper until at last it fit Cinderella's foot and they were reunited and married.

Now Cinderella was a princess, she lived in the royal castle with the prince, his father the king, the grand duke, Prudence the minister of hospitality, and several other advisers, officials, courtiers, guards, and servants. Cinderella didn't allow her new position and wealth to change her. She still remained warm, friendly, kind, loving, gentle, caring, honest and hard working.

In the summer of this year Cinderella had been instrumental in putting Anastasia and Ben together. It started on the summer solstice, which was popular for its tradition of young lovers giving each other a garland of flowers, so that they would be together forever. On summer solstice night there was a ball held at the castle. Anastasia met Ben a few days before the summer solstice. It was the smell of fresh-baked bread that led Anastasia to Ben's bakery. She found Ben taking loaves of fresh-baked bread out of the oven and they bumped into each other.

Usually, Anastasia has a personality to match her homely appearance. She is mean, rude, selfish, immature and insulting. But when she saw Ben's sweet face and his gentle brown eyes so warm and kind, with a welcoming smile, something in her melted. She found herself smiling for the first time in ages. Ben was nice to her and he didn't even know her. Something about the baker brought up feelings she had never felt, or at least had been buried so deep she thought she would never have to face them. She was about to try one of his warm toasty fresh baguettes when her mother came into the shop and knocked the bread from her hands. Her snobby, proud mother glared around the baker's shop and coldly declared everything in it to be inferior.

Lady Tremaine marched her daughters out of the bakery. She ordered Anastasia not to say another word to the 'shopkeeper' Anastasia's face fell. What could she do? Her mother had forbidden her to see the baker again. But she felt something so strong for him. Could it be love?

Then Cinderella and her mice interfered. The mice got the baker's attention and he chased them, then the bluebirds snatched off Anastasia's bonnet and led her back to the bakery. Anastasia met the baker a second time, they told each other their names, but then the baker's horse, spooked by the mice and birds, kicked Anastasia with his rear legs into the bakery, right into the dough making ingredients on the counter. Anastasia lay on the floor covered in milk, eggs, floor and yeast. Ben was surprised and tried to help her up, but she was humiliated and ran out of the store.

The people in town recognized Anastasia Tremaine, the mean bratty girl who had picked on so many of them. So they laughed at her humiliation. Poor Anastasia fled from the mocking laughter and found a quiet little fountain at the cul-de-sac of a narrow street.

Here Cinderella found her. She offered her help. Cinderella took her back to the castle and got her cleaned up. She gave Anastasia a pretty lavender satin dress and purple ribbon for her neck. Then she gave her stepsister some very good advice on how to get people to like you. You start by being lovable. In order to be a princess, you must act like a princess and be one in your heart. You're not fully dressed without your smile. True beauty is the inner beauty of a good heart. Anastasia thought about these things. She went home and planned on sneaking out to buy a garland of flowers for Ben.

The day before solstice day, her mother found her sitting at her vanity mirror in her bedroom wearing a plush yellow and cream-colored bathrobe brushing her long carrot red hair. Then, after her mother was gone, she threw off the bathrobe to reveal the lavender satin dress Cinderella gave her and put on her matching shoes and ran to the kitchen and threw all the bread out the window, which landed on Lucifer the cat who was outside. "Mother, I have to go to town, we're out of bread!" She yelled. She quickly dashed out the door and into the carriage Cinderella had hired for her use and went into town to meet Ben.

In town Anastasia went to the booth selling the flower garlands. She bought a heart-shaped garland of lavender roses. As she was leaving the booth, she turned and saw Ben the baker with another girl, a very pretty girl their age in a blue dress with dark brown ringlets and fair skin. He held a garland identical to the one she got for him out to her for her to inspect. The girl smiled broadly and patted his arm. She whispered something in his ear.

Anastasia could bear it no longer. Obviously Ben was in love with this girl and not with her. Why would he lover her anyway? She was ugly, mean, rude and stupid. Anastasia ran away from the booth and came to the well. She sat down by the well, her garland beside her, and began to cry. She cried as if her heart would break. A horrible old goat came along and tried to eat her rose garland, she grabbed it and tried to pull it away from him, the two of them tugging on the garland made of lavender roses and supple wicker sticks and wire made the thing come apart, the goat chomped on the delicious roses.

Ben came and shooed the goat away. He sat down beside Anastasia and titled her head up with his finger. She drew back.

"Don't look at me, I look horrible!"

"No, you don't." He picked up a ragged lavender rose with most of its petals torn off. It looked more like a daisy than a rose. He tucked it in her hair behind her ear. "It wasn't what you thought, she was just a friend. I like you."

"Really?"

"Yes."

Anastasia wiped away her tears and smiled. She placed her hand in Ben's and he helped her up. "I would be honored if you would go to the summer solstice ball with me." Ben asked her.

"I would love to!" She replied enthusiastically.

Then her mother came by the well and found them.

"Anastasia there you are! How dare you defy me by continuing to see this common shopkeeper. Dear child, you know it is only your best interest I have at heart. He will not make a good husband. This is only puppy love, mere childish affection. You will grow out of it and find yourself a man of wealth and title who will be able to properly support you. Come along, enough of these games, you've had your fun, now it's time to be serious about finding the right man…." She went to take Anastasia by the hand and lead her out of town and back to their house. But Anastasia pulled out of her mother's grip.

"No mother, you're wrong. Ben is a good man, he is sweet and kind and hardworking. I really do care for him. He works hard at his trade and even though he's not rich he is good at what he does. I am serious about him, and we will go to the ball together."

Lady Tremaine's mouth dropped open in shock to hear her daughter stand up to her. How dare she? Where did she get the nerve? Then she saw Cinderella standing near the well wearing one of her old maid's dresses with her arms folded across her chest looking pleased with herself. So this was her doing. But of course. She probably encouraged the romance. Lady Tremaine saw that she could do nothing now to stop her daughter Anastasia from going to the ball with the baker. She was defeated. Drizella watched her sister defy their mother with surprise, and looked at her sister's new beau with jealousy. Even though he was common he was sweet and fairly good-looking and nice. She had somebody to love. If only she could find somebody like that.

Anastasia put the lavender dress to use by spending the rest of the day in town with Ben. They went to each other's favorite places. Then took her home and she met his parents. They were very nice. His father was a miller, and his mother and grandmother superb cooks. He had learned about baking from his mother and grandmother. His mother worked as a baker's assistant, and when he was old enough he got the same kind of job. He took over more of the baking when the old baker he worked for got arthritis could do less of the work himself. Eventually the old baker retired and sold the shop to Ben's mother. Ben's mother knew how much her son liked baking and how important the job was to him so she let him handle most of the baking while she kept track of the income. They used plenty of family recipes and had quite a collection of recipes and cookbooks. Rachel Miller greeted Anastasia with a hug and a plate full of chocolate chip cookies.

At the summer solstice ball Anastasia danced with Ben wearing a lovely primrose yellow chiffon ball gown she borrowed from Cinderella. Ben looked quite handsome in his Prussian blue broadcloth suit with shiny gold buttons and gold trim. Cinderella wore a sea green silk ball gown with a darker green bodice and turquoise jewelry set in silver. Prince Edward, Cinderella's husband, wore an elegant uniform with a white coat with a red sash across it, gold epaulets, buttons and medals, and blue pants with a gold stripe down the sides. The prince also wore his gold crown.

Anastasia had the best time she'd ever had at that ball. She fell in love with Ben, and knew it was real love. Anastasia was surprised that he could love her. After all, she had very few likeable characteristics. Anastasia had not always been a mean, ugly, bratty, rude immature and rotten stepsister. Life had not gone well for her family, and that is what brought them to their current bitterness and self-centeredness.