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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of inspirational short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

150+ Inspirational Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. From tales of the miraculous to stories of extraordinary people overcoming incredible odds, you’ll always find something uplifting in our collection of inspirational short stories.

Inspirational Short Stories – Page 4 of 10

The Margins of Rock Bottom - Based on My Lived Life Experience

Weekly Contest #343

She didn’t mean to make a ceremony out of it. It just happened that way. The first page tore too easily. The sound surprised her with a soft, almost polite noise. It was nothing like the noise in her chest. She stood in the kitchen with a stack of notebooks she’d been carrying for years, their covers bent, their margins crowded with questions she never finished asking. Scripture, prayers, half-brave hopes. She told herself she was only cleaning. Then the second page went. Then the third. By the time she noticed her hands were shaking, paper...

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Tap it Just Right

Erin Harer

Weekly Contest #343

CW: Mental illness/self-harm Tap it Just RightThe usual burden lurking in my bones is hung around my neck in the form of my mother's pearls. The thought that there are thirteen of them, and not twelve, consumes the space in my mind that I should be using to fasten my hair away from my face. But if I do, the matching set of earrings will make it fifteen pearls, and not fourteen, which is also unacceptable, so I wear my black hair long, even though it hides the white lace details on the back of my dress.Alone in my childhood bedroom, the woman...

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The Message

Kelly Cleveland

Weekly Contest #343

A crack of thunder shattered the stillness of the evening, followed by a blinding bolt of lightning that split the darkening sky in two. The storm had arrived without warning, rolling in from the hills with a fury that sent the townsfolk of Brookhaven scurrying indoors. Windows slammed shut. Lamps flickered on. Rain poured down in heavy sheets, drumming against rooftops and turning the dirt roads into slick rivers of mud that swallowed boots whole. Maggie Dobbins hurried along the narrow path leading away from town, clutching her bag...

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Outside

Neille Williams

Weekly Contest #343

OutsideOutside.One step.I blinked into the gleaming sun and the gentle caress of the breeze touched my cheek like the breath of God. One step.It was a world I had almost forgotten and I felt I had no right to walk into it again.One step.All the lovely twittering birds stopped their song to hold their breath and see what I would do.And what would I do? What would I do after fifteen years inside of this place – inside of myself?The car at the curb threw open a door and my sister sprung out of it. Beatrice! The wild little sister I had always l...

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I Fear to Fail

Dane Haylett

Weekly Contest #343

How long has it been? How long have I been stuck here, thinking? I feel my life worth withering away each second longer I await the end, I see my parents, I can sense the disappointment they have towards me. So much effort put into the past nineteen years of my life, for to all lead up to this, a shriveless end. I…wanted to be an author, a poet. I wanted to get lost in the world of make believe. Perhaps that was my attempt to run from the world I was born into, a way to avoid the responsibility I have taken on. I promised them I’...

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THE DAY JJDALION BROKE ROUTINE

Shannan Richards

Weekly Contest #343

Every morning, before the world woke up, before the comments and duets and algorithmic demands began clawing at him, jjdalion listened to his breathing. Not peaceful breathing.Not the slow, rested inhale of someone who slept deeply.His was sharp, clipped, already bracing for the day ahead. He sat up, spine stiff, stomach hollow from the fast he’d forced on himself the night before. His phone buzzed on the nightstand — notifications piling up like snowdrifts. Mentions. Tags. Requests for the next challenge. He didn’t check them yet.That was R...

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From out of the Darkness

Joni Smalls

Weekly Contest #343

I was your typical sophomore teenager, who am I kidding, there wasn't anything typical about me. I stood 5’9”, super skinny, but I had a big set of boobs. Thanks to my German side. I was super active, running track and taking dance class-I loved to dance. I was everyone's friend. I haven’t had a boyfriend yet, not that I didn’t want one; it just wasn't my time. But little did I know that it was about to change. For some strange reason, my dad started playing Cupid. There was this guy named Sylvester Perkins, but everyone called him Frank. I ...

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The Day the Bus Didn’t Come

Weekly Contest #343

At 6:12 every morning, Mara Kline stepped onto the cracked square of sidewalk in front of her duplex and waited for the Number 47. She wore sensible flats, even in winter. She carried her coffee in a dented blue thermos, even in summer. She stood beneath the leaning sycamore, even on days when the wind shook loose a confetti of bark and dusted her dark hair with pale curls. Routine was a kindness. Routine did not surprise you.At 6:19, the bus sighed to the curb. At 6:42, she unlocked the side door of Hensley & Daughters Insurance. At 7:0...

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Reflection of Memories

Tiffany Yu

Weekly Contest #343

Sunlight filtered through the latticework of ancient oaks, turning the world beneath into a kaleidoscope of shifting golds and cool, dappled greens. The hush of late afternoon pressed softly down on the small clearing, where an arch twined with wisteria stooped like a blessing over the grassy aisle. Petals of lilac and peony dusted the path, their scent thickening the air to a sweetness heavy enough to taste. Above, the canopy sighed and whispered, and ribbons of breeze sent tremors down the garlands, making the wedding arch shimmer as if it...

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The Primer

Jim LaFleur

Weekly Contest #343

The envelope sat on the kitchen table like a landmine wrapped in paper, gathering dust but losing none of its danger.Samuel had placed it there eleven months ago, the day after the funeral, and had not touched it since. Iris's handwriting covered the front. He recognized the shape of his name in her slanted letters the way a man recognizes a face without knowing its bones. The rest of the words he could not read. He had never been able to read.Seventy years he had carried the secret. He'd built houses, framed roofs, cut dovetail joints so ti...

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Joy

Amy Whitmore

Weekly Contest #343

I knew she would be different the minute I saw her coming towards me down the aisle. Swinging her small backpack side to side in front of her, not seeming to care who she might hit. Oblivious to the looks that others were giving her, eyeing her like she was an alien, not from around here. People don't take well to outsiders on this side of town. A white woman on this bus is not a common sight; we are mostly men going to work. Black men with a few white. No children. Bus just makes a few stops around Groveville and then heads right to the cit...

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1949

Weekly Contest #343

The sky sagged over the narrow West Virginia hollow like a sheet of wet slate dragged too low, heavy enough to bruise the lungs before the rock ever struck. In this forgotten coal town—squeezed between soft, rounded ridges where the black seams ran under every clapboard house, every crooked fence post, every tilted stone in the graveyard up on the rise—the air never lost its iron tang, its coal-dust grit, its faint sulfur aftertaste from the tipple fires that never quite went out. Tonight the fear sharpened it all into something metallic and...

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Made Especially for Me

Fi Brie

Weekly Contest #342

He’d refused to see me. This might come as a shock to you; I assume you are also making assumptions, trying to fill in the holes of a story you have just stumbled across. I think you’ve decided that rejecting someone’s request to visit is unwarranted. I wouldn’t blame you for that conclusion- it’s understandable, given the laws of human interaction. Someone requests to see you, you accept. Simple. But then, there was nothing simple about this request. Maybe you scoffed at his rudeness, but you don’t know him, and you don’t know me. You don’t...

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Sunset in Milan

♡ Tana ♡

Weekly Contest #342

The New York City skyline looks smaller than I thought it would from above. As I lift up out of JFK into the autumn streaked clouds, I think about how overwhelming and magnificent it is when you’re in the city, and how inconsequential it seems when you are miles above it. Although I know it’s impossible, I stare into the lights below me and imagine I can see the rooftop of my Queens apartment. I can almost convince myself I can make out the shape of the hospital from here, and I can nearly feel the preternatural chilliness and sterile air. ...

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And Along Came Sara and Emily

George Ruff

Weekly Contest #342

Henry Elliot finally relented and decided he might as well get up. He had slept very little. He knew that today would be as hard a day as he had ever faced. He had to say goodbye to his very best friend in the world.Sam had been Henry’s constant companion for more than ten years. Together, they had explored much of the United States. This included big cities, beaches, forest trails, nine national parks and at last count the two had attended 198 professional baseball games together. Henry and Sam also liked football and tennis, but baseball w...

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