title: Ascending the Mountain: 30-Day Devotional Challenge
author: Madeline C. Henners
description: Madeline Carrasco Henners is a United Methodist pastor in south Texas. She has been in pastoral ministry since 2007, after graduating from Duke Divinity School. She is working towards her Doctor of Ministry at United Theological Seminary with the Randy Clark Scholars cohort. Her heart is for revival and using the charismatic gifts of God to seek and save the lost. But more than anything else, her heart longs to know God more deeply with each passing day.
zlib_text: eBook Version: 2.0.
  
  Sing A Last Song Of Valdese
  
  Karl Edward Wagner
  
  I
  
  The Girl Beneath the Oak
  
  "Reverence! Hold up a moment!" The burly priest drew rein in a swirl of autumn
  leaves. Calloused fingers touched the plain hilt of the sword strapped to his
  saddle as his cowled head bent in the direction of her call.
  
  Raven-black hair twining in the autumn wind, the girl stepped out from the
  gnarled oaks that shouldered the mountain trail. Bright black eyes smiled up
  at him from her wide-browed, strong-boned face. Her mouth was wide as well,
  and smiled.
  
  "You ride fast this evening reverence."
  
  "Because the shadows grow deeper, and I have a good way to ride to reach the
  inn ahead." His voice was impatient.
  
  "There's an inn not more than a mile from here." She swayed closer, and he saw
  how her full figure swelled against her long-skirted dress.
  
  The priest followed her gesture. Just ahead the trail forked, the left winding
  alongside the mountain river the right cutting along the base of t