Short Story: William's Joy

The following Christmas story and image are generated using ChatGPT for your refreshing.

Image credit: ChatGPT

William had stopped counting the months after the breakup, but six had passed all the same. Long enough for the sharpness to dull. Long enough for habits to rearrange themselves around absence. Long enough, he thought, to believe he was fine.

Dinner with friends that Christmas Eve had been warm and loud—laughter rising easily, glasses clinking, familiar jokes retold with seasonal indulgence. Yet beneath it all, William felt like a guest in his own life, present but slightly removed, as though something essential had slipped out of reach and he hadn’t yet noticed when.

When they parted ways near City Hall, the night greeted him with a gentler tempo. The air was cool, the streets softened by festive lights. He walked without urgency, hands buried in his pockets, the city unusually hushed for a place that rarely slept.

That was when he noticed the movement.

People streamed toward St. Andrew’s Cathedral in quiet clusters—families, couples, elderly parishioners walking slowly but with purpose. Some carried small booklets. Others simply carried themselves with a calm he couldn’t quite name. It was nearly midnight. Christmas Eve.

William slowed.

He had never disliked churches. He simply hadn’t believed they were meant for him. Faith, to him, had always felt like a boundary rather than a bridge—an inherited certainty that asked too much, explained too little. It was, after all, what had ended things with Linda.

She had never tried to convert him. That, in many ways, had been the hardest part. She spoke of her faith the way one spoke of home—not defensively, not loudly, but with a quiet assurance that made room for difference while never diminishing its importance. Still, when the question of a shared future surfaced, belief stopped being theoretical. It became directional.

He remembered her once saying, gently, “I don’t need you to believe what I believe. I just need you to understand why it matters.”

At the time, he hadn’t.

Now, standing outside the cathedral gates, William felt something unfamiliar stir—not conviction, not longing, but a simple curiosity. The doors stood open, light spilling out onto the stone steps. Music drifted through the night air, unhurried and clear.

He followed the crowd inside.

The space received him without question. Tall arches drew his gaze upward. Candlelight flickered against pale stone, casting shadows that felt alive rather than ominous. He found a seat near the back, slipping in unnoticed, relieved that no one seemed interested in who he was or why he was there.

As the service began, the noise of the city faded completely. There was scripture, song, and silence woven together with care. William found himself breathing more slowly, his thoughts settling into something like stillness. It had been a long time since he had truly listened without preparing a rebuttal.

The preacher spoke not with grandeur, but with warmth. He spoke of birth—not just as a miracle, but as an interruption. Of how joy entered the world not through power or dominance, but through vulnerability. A child born into uncertainty, into darkness, into a world that did not yet know what to do with love that asked nothing in return.

“Joy,” the preacher said, “is not the absence of suffering. It is the presence of God within it.”

Something shifted.

William had always believed joy was earned—through achievement, independence, clarity of thought. He had prided himself on self-sufficiency, on standing apart from inherited beliefs. Yet listening now, he realized how tired that posture had made him. How exhausting it was to carry the weight of meaning alone.

He thought of Linda again. Of how she had spoken of faith not as certainty, but as trust. Of how she had knelt beside her bed some nights, not because life was easy, but because it wasn’t. He had once mistaken that posture for weakness.

Now, it looked like courage.

As the congregation sang Joy to the World, William felt a tightening in his chest he did not try to resist. The words moved through him not as doctrine, but as invitation. Let earth receive her King. Not command. Receive.

He realized then that faith, as it was being offered to him, was not an argument to be won. It was a relationship to be entered. A willingness to be known, even in uncertainty.

When the service ended and people began to disperse, William remained seated for a moment longer. He did not feel suddenly righteous or transformed. But he felt opened. As though a door he had kept firmly shut—out of principle, out of pride—had been nudged ajar.

Outside, the night seemed different. Not brighter, but deeper. The city hummed softly, as if aware of something sacred passing through its ordinary rhythms.

William stepped back onto the pavement, his reflection briefly catching in the cathedral doors. He thought of the world he had built—rational, independent, carefully self-contained. And for the first time, he wondered not what he might lose by letting God in, but what he might finally lay down.

Joy, he understood now, was not about having all the answers. It was about discovering he didn’t have to carry them alone.

As he made his way toward the MRT, Christmas bells ringing faintly behind him, William felt his world shift—not violently, not all at once, but irrevocably.

And somewhere within that quiet rearrangement, faith had begun—not as a conclusion, but as a beginning.

May you discover the Joy of Christmas, and receive Jesus as your LORD and Saviour, if not already done so. Merry Christmas! Thank you for reading Daily Refreshing.