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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

Morning Person

Weekly Contest #352

Same story, different day. If I don’t open my eyes it will just go away. The sunlight has crept around the edges of my blackout curtains again. Every night, I carefully examine the small gap where the curtain overlaps the frame of the window ever so slightly. If I arrange the pleats of the curtain just right, there will be no gap. I will not have to see the razor sharp edge of the morning sun—the cruel sun. If only there were dark clouds every day. I am hiding my eyes behind the gossamer bed sheet, but I know it will not be effective. Only d...

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Euphoria of Ink and Color

Weekly Contest #352

Warm sand slipped between her toes as a cool breeze drifted along the coast. She sat atop her favorite bohemian blanket, an ice-cold coffee resting beside her, condensation sliding down the cup. Paints and inks lay scattered around her, accompanied by the steady rhythm of waves crashing against the shore. The easel stood tall beside her, holding a canvas in place. Nothing but a blank, untouched surface waiting to be brought to life. Even the pages of her notebooks mirrored it, filled with the same quiet emptiness. She pondered which colors...

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The Color of Grief

Weekly Contest #352

I crushed the cigarette in the ash tray on my desk as I reminisced on the world that once was full of light, hope, dreams, and color. My God there were so many colors. Now all that was left were shades and shadows. The smoke from the ashes looked like the last gasp of humanity trying to hold on to something. Everyone is going around trying to get on with their lives, trying to make sense of it all. Red was the first to go. I remember hearing a siren blaring only to see it come from a grey fire truck flying through the intersection respond...

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Where My Feet Are

Weekly Contest #352

Where My Feet Are SidemanBy the time I leave for Bali, I know something inside my life needs to change. I just don’t know what.I board a 23-hour flight from Los Angeles to Bali, leaving everything familiar behind. Gazing out the window, seeing nothing but endless blue sky, I make a declaration to myself: I will live in the present, right here, right now, where my feet are. I repeat the words, willing them to take hold. Somewhere along the flight I notice my shoulders relax, as if my body understands before my mind does.I arrive in Denpasar a...

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First Light: A Promise Renewed A Journey of Determination and New Beginnings

Weekly Contest #352

She blinked awake, the remnants of sleep clinging stubbornly to the edges of her consciousness. As she slipped from the warmth of her sheets, instinct guided her hand to the phone—5:00 a.m. The world outside her window was wrapped in a hush, a gentle stillness inviting her to start anew. Today marked the first sunrise of her new running ritual—a promise she'd made to herself in a rare, honest moment the night before. The words echoed with meaning, shadowed by memories of abandoned starts: a rainy evening ending in discouragement, a gym membe...

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Twinkle

Weekly Contest #352

I still remember my mom’s surprised face when I told her about our new third-grade teacher. -What are you saying? Are you nuts?+ I don’t want to join her classes, she is grey, and grey is not good- Ahh, I don’t know what you are saying, GREY? What do you mean? Actually, I know, it is just another excuse to ditch class. They don’t understand what I mean. Sometimes it is difficult to use words to describe your feelings. How should I describe the mind-blowing smell of gold sunshine? I’m dying for the colourful sunny days. + It’s gold today, let...

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Pick A Color

Weekly Contest #352

I woke up in a dead sweat even though the fan was blowing the hot air around on my boat and the Florida sun hadn’t yet ripped through the morning darkness with its exploding loudness of color, dressing the clouds of the eastern ocean horizon in a blazing, almost surreal outburst of color. The Earth’s inevitable rotation hadn’t yet brought light around to eastern daylight savings time of America, but that would only bring more heat on the downside, but on the upside there would be another famous Florida sunrise.It always started with minimal ...

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Remember Tauberun

Weekly Contest #352

Mila Hoffman never believed in ghosts. Not until Tauberun.Rumors said it was a lively place, once. The baker always had fresh bread ready in the mornings. The buttery scent of it drifted through town as the courier and milkman crossed paths delivering their goods. Children rode bicycles over rough cobblestones on their way to the schoolhouse, and the church bells tolled on the hour, keeping time for the town’s few hundred residents. That Tauberun died out seventy-five years ago. ***Wrendall was a vibrant city. Neon signs bathed the streets i...

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You're blue like the ocean

Weekly Contest #352

I woke up early that morning, aware of the weight this day carried, just like every year. I left the house at dawn, when the sky, which had been a deep blue, slowly began to fade into a dull gray. The cool, damp air characteristic of the Oregon coast, washed over me, the only greeting I would receive that morning. I set off toward the town center. The streets were deserted at that hour. A thick fog limited visibility. The air was acrid, the clouds threatening rain, and the wind blew relentlessly.On my way, I noticed the small bookstore of th...

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The Day I Opened My Eyes… and Everything Was Still Black

Weekly Contest #352

They say that when I was born, I opened my eyes and saw nothing.Black.That’s how they tell it, like it was a tragedy, like something inside me had failed before I even had the chance to become anything. I grew up listening to the quiet pauses in their voices, the softened tone people use when they don’t know how to speak without sounding sorry. They never said it directly, but I could feel it in the air around me—this idea that my world was smaller than theirs.But no one ever asked me what it felt like to live in it.Because if they had… they...

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The Piece of Pork

Weekly Contest #352

My mother was five years old when hunger taught her what dignity could not.Hunger has a sound.It is not loud. It does not scream the way pain does. It whispers. It scratches from the inside, slow and patient, like something alive trying to get out. It curls in the stomach, climbs into the throat, and settles behind the eyes until everything you see begins to look like food.That day, the house was full. Too full. Voices spilled over each other, laughter rose in bursts, plates clattered, and the smell—thick, heavy, impossible to ignore—wrapped...

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Lady Mimi’s Shop

Weekly Contest #351

Lady Mimi was an unusual character who owned and practically lived at her sewing shop in Greenville. Her age was never divulged by her, but that didn’t keep people from guessing (She is most definitely a young fifty-three!; Not a day under seventy, that woman!; Sixties, you mark my words!) No one agreed on the topic, concluding only that the owner of Magic Threads was somewhere between the ages of forty-five and ninety. But most all concurred that the woman was strange, with her odd clothes and almost indifferent demeanor. Today, Mimi was l...

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Faith's Heart

Weekly Contest #351

Faith’s Heart Surrounded by a mountain of crumpled paper and staring at a blank page, Faith let out a big sigh of discouragement. She had been planning to create a story for such a long time there was no lack of supplies on hand to create.The supplies and the ideas that won’t grow blanketed the carpet in her bedroom. If someone came to visit, they would likely have to strategically step so as not to disturb or break something she might need later on.She was uncomfortably situated in a small space with the glaring blank page in front of her. ...

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33rd and First

Weekly Contest #351

She had lived thirty-three different lives, yet she was still an absolute failure. “No, wait. That came out wrong.” Spencer groaned, removing his metal frames to rub both temples.But it was too late, it came out.Aya felt like he had taken a vacuum and sucked the air from her lungs. And then sent it straight back at her ears. She couldn’t tell if the crowded cafe had gone quiet or if the noise had been drowned out by the wind roaring down her canals. If only that wind could blow across her face. She thought she could probably fry an egg on he...

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The Weight of a July Blue

Weekly Contest #352

In the textbooks, July is a riot of aggressive color. It is the scorching, unforgiving yellow of the midday sun. A light so bright it flattens the world into two dimensions. It is the artificial, celebratory explosions of red and white that scar the blue night sky, demanding attention with every concussive boom. But that year, the world lost its warmth. The spectrum shifted, narrowed, and cooled. For me, July bled into a singular, haunting shade of blue.It started with his eyes. They were a bright, crystalline blue that had seen decades of l...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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