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Author Coldicutt's narrative focuses on the biblical account of Jesus, infusing familiar tales with refreshing, conversational flavor. She begins with Mary's impending childbirth, appropriately relating this to current ideas and feelings about pregnancy. She reminds us of Mary's youth combined with her conviction that an angel told her about the child's destiny, making the older Joseph's perceptions of her pregnancy announcement all the more historically crucial. As the author narrates using current language, she poses questions to help the reader recognize and identify with each segment's biblical actors. How differently might things have turned out if Joseph had been hard-hearted? What if your child disappeared in a huge city for three days? How would you feel if your beloved spiritual master had just died most horribly? By enhancing these old stories with facts and fervor, she enlivens them, inviting readers to examine their convictions and strengthen their faith.
Coldicutt introduces herself as someone whose deep conversion happened later in life, instilling in her the zeal to compose a book based not only on biblical reading but also, it is clear, on determined research. She has visited the Holy Land and has obviously studied the people and places mentioned in the stories she explores. She compares the spiritual lessons of Jesus to modern happenings, including miraculous cures of which she has personal knowledge. Her imaginative retelling of such events as Jesus meeting the woman at the well, or the feelings of the man Simon who helped carry the cross for Jesus, show both her gift for drama and her skill in illuminating obscure but relevant facts. In composing this work, which took a long time to come to fruition, Coldicutt offers thoughtful Christians an opportunity to study their religion from new perspectives.