Grandkids surprise us with their words:
“Grandparents are a lady and a man who have no children of their own. They like other peoples’ kids.”
“They wear glasses and funny underwear.”
“Grandmothers are usually fat but not too fat to tie up your shoelaces.”
Last week our 4-year-old granddaughter said, “Mommy, I pray to God every day. I pray to Him about lots of things. Sometimes I’m scared at night, but I don’t come to you, Mommy, because I pray instead.”
Pretty sweet. But some would say it’s rather silly. How can a child understand anything about God?
Annie Johnson was born on Christmas Eve, 1866. She was three when her mother died. Her dad died soon after and she was brought up by the Flint family.
At 8, Annie Johnson Flint trusted Jesus and said God’s “eternal work” had begun in her life.
The popular Annie soon discovered she loved to write poetry. But in her second year of teaching, arthritis crippled her and doctors told her she would be an invalid. Her adoptive parents died within months of each other, and the twice-orphaned Annie was alone again with little money in the bank.
In her suffering, she began crafting hand-lettered cards and writing poetry. When a publisher released a booklet of her inspiring poems, letters arrived from around the world. Though cancer and blindness threatened to cripple her, she hung on to the Bible verse:
“My grace is sufficient for you: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Somehow, she wrote a song that would be sung and loved by millions to this day:
He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater, He sendeth more strength when the labours increase;
To added affliction, He addeth His mercy, To multiplied trials His multiplied peace.
When we have exhausted our store of endurance, When our strength has failed ‘ere the day is half done;
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, Our Father’s full giving is only begun.
His love has no limit, His grace has no measure, His pow’r has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus, He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.
Young and old, strong and weak, God uses us. When we hold a little child, may they inspire in us a whispered prayer of thanks for what God can do, for what they may become.
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