Five year old Holly Martin, like all the females in her mother's family, has inherited a genetic mutation that sometimes causes an incurable and always fatal disease: Thornton's Mitochondrial Myopathy, TMM. Holly falls victim to the disease. The development of the little girl's illness is pivotal to the plot, which focuses on her parents? initial hope that she will escape it, their fear that she will not, the tragic reality of her terrible fate when the malady befalls her, their panic-stricken sorrow and their prayers that somehow she will be spared. They need a miracle. Holly's mother firmly believes God will grant that miracle, curing her daughter through direct divine intervention. The child's father, from whose first-person viewpoint the story is told, hopes instead for a medical breakthrough, a cure wrought by human scientific progress. Much of the action revolves around Holly's public school kindergarten class Nativity Play, canceled after being ruled politically incorrect. To Holly, chosen by her teacher for the role of the Virgin Mary, nothing is more important than that Christmas show. Despite being weakened by her increasingly debilitating illness and confined to a wheelchair, she is determined to perform. Unwilling to see Holly suffer the disappointment of the show's cancellation, the Martins stage it themselves at their farm on Cape Henlopen, Delaware. The human interest story of the sick little girl and her family's successful efforts on her behalf receives growing media attention that, on Christmas Eve, results in their story being reported on national television when Holly wakes up that very morning completely cured.