Children’s Story

Children’s Story – The Night Dad Prayed

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Back in 1956 we lived way out in the country, and at the time, we didn’t have a car to get around. If we went anywhere, we either had to depend on relatives or neighbors to take us to town, or we would have to walk. We were always very poor. We didn’t have any way to go to and from church, so every once in a while a preacher would come to visit and to minister to all of us, but my dad would go out to the workshop and stay out there until the preacher would leave. Then he would come back to the house.

Well, one day the preacher came to the house, and Dad didn’t have a chance to get away from him like the other times when he had come. The preacher got to minister to him a little bit that day, but Dad still didn’t seem ready to really listen to him yet. All he would say to the preacher would be “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” For years and years that was all he would say whenever someone would try to talk to him about the Lord.

One day a neighbor let my dad use his car to go to town to get some groceries. He didn’t have too much money to buy groceries; course we never had much money, but it was enough to get us by, so he took off early in the afternoon. The rest of the family, along with myself, had finished doing our chores, finished our supper, and it was starting to get dark, but Dad still hadn’t made it home. My mother was starting to get worried, but she wouldn’t let on to the rest of us. Course, we knew something had to be wrong, because Dad had never done anything like that before.

Everyone finally went to bed except for Mother; she sat up and worked on her crocheting—she always had something like that going. I guess it was about three o’clock in the morning when Dad finally got home, carrying all the groceries, which was five full bags. We couldn’t figure out just how he managed to carry all that stuff, but the next day he told all of us the story.

He said he started from town and only went four miles out of town when the car broke down. He didn’t know what to do, so he waited and waited for someone to come by, but to no avail. So he said he got on his knees and prayed to God. Dad said he didn’t know whether God would answer him or not, but he had to try.

While he was praying, he said something was telling him to pick up the bags. He said he didn’t think he would have the strength to be able to carry all the bags, but he picked up all five bags and started out for home. He continued walking until he arrived home. When he arrived home, he said he wasn’t even tired. He also told us that the bags never, ever got too heavy for him to carry, and he did not have to set them down at all. The only way he could have walked the eleven miles home, carrying those full bags of groceries, was with help from God!

From that night on, my dad’s favorite Bible text was Matthew 17:20: “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”

Children’s Story – Tales of a Tennessee Chain Gang, Part I

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Bill Burchard jerked his head up and peered quizzically from among the cornstalks. What was that noise? He pushed a crumpled blue bandana slowly across his brow and then stood scanning the underbrush 40 yards away.

Seeing nothing, he moved to the next stalk and ripped the blades off. His family of seven had long since consumed the last of the corn, and now, early in September 1894, he was salvaging the blades to feed his scrawny cow.

Burchard worked five days a week in the Dayton Coal and Iron Mine. He ascended from the brutal bowels of the earth to go to church on Saturday, and this schedule left Sunday as his only day to catch up on work around his home.

He straightened up again. He had heard something. A screeching jay betrayed two men about to disappear over a low ridge.

Burchard thought nothing more about the incident until one evening a week or two later when he came home to find Sheriff Darwin sitting on his front stoop. The sheriff rose slowly as Burchard approached.

“Help ya ‘t all, Sheriff?” Burchard asked.

Darwin looked down, slipping the four fingers of each hand into his front pockets.

“I’m sorry, Bill,” he mumbled, “but I got to take ya in.”

“Take me in!” Burchard’s face paled in shock, even under the layer of coal dust. “But what in the world for?”

“Here,” said the sheriff, slipping a long folded piece of paper out from under his vest, “listen to this.”

“State of Tennessee, To the Sheriff of Rhea County, Greeting: You are hereby commanded to take the body of William S. Burchard, if found in your county, and him safely keep, so that you have him before the judge of our Circuit Court . . . at the Courthouse in the town of Dayton, on the first Monday in March next, then and there to answer the state for violating Sabbath. Herein fail not. . . . C. G. Gillespie, Clerk.”

By the time Burchard finally returned home, he understood what his two secretive visitors had been doing that Sunday.

Burchard lived four and a half miles from Graysville, Tennessee, in a little valley called the Cove. In Graysville, a town of 600, about 20 percent of the town kept the seventh-day Sabbath. The religious community had built up around Graysville Academy, a school begun two years earlier by a Sabbath- keeping minister named G. W. Colcord. (The school was later moved and grew into what is now known as Southern Adventist University near Chattanooga.)

Not only Burchard but also Colcord and two of the Academy teachers, along with several other Sabbathkeepers, were under indictment for violating Tennessee’s Sunday law. Burchard was charged on two counts—stripping fodder and helping to dig a well on Sunday. Others were charged with such crimes as putting chicken wire around a garden or carrying a few boards.

The trials made it obvious that the chief instigator of the trouble was an angry coal miner named Wright Rains, who had been refused credit by the Sabbath-keeping proprietor of a local grocery store. Two of his friends had slipped out of the services in their Sunday church, just over the ridge from Burchard’s cabin, to spy on him.

For more than 15 years, Sabbathkeepers had been subjected to sporadic persecution for Sunday-law violations in various states. They believed at the time that to rest on Sunday was an admission of Sunday’s sacredness. They believed that that would be giving in to a false system of worship.

To be continued . . .

Children’s Story- Tales of a Tennessee Chain Gang, Part II

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By the time of the arrests in Graysville, Tennessee, 53 Sabbathkeepers had been convicted of Sunday violations, and 30 had gone to prison. Prior to the Supreme Court’s “Christian Nation” decision in 1892, Sabbathkeepers had spent thousands of dollars on lawyers’ fees to escape conviction, usually without success. After 1892, they considered the cause hopeless, and spoke the best they could in their own defense.

But though the beleaguered Graysville Sabbathkeepers had little hope in the court, they had plenty of help outside. The American Sentinel, an eight-year-old journal of religious liberty, sent reporters to cover the trials.

The three newspapers in Dayton, Tennessee, were outspoken in defense of the Sabbathkeepers, and before the Graysville cases finally were resolved, more than 250 newspapers across the country sided with the Sabbathkeepers.

Anyone arriving in Dayton by rail on Sunday, March 4, the day before the trial began, could have gathered ample evidence that what Sabbathkeepers faced was religious discrimination rather than simple prosecution under the law.

The fact that one could get to Dayton on a Sunday train would have been the first proof. Then, walking down the street toward the courthouse, doubtlessly one would see three small boys sucking hard candy in front of the drugstore and hear the cash-register bell jangle periodically inside.

From the courthouse, one could see the belching smokestack of the Dayton Coal and Iron Company. Like a black flag, the smoke signaled that 400 or more workmen were keeping the furnaces hot on Sunday. The switch engine as it coughed and whistled away with its load of slag could also be heard. But only the Sabbathkeepers were charged with working on Sunday.

A little investigation by Dayton’s local papers revealed that members of the grand jury that indicted the Sabbathkeepers were hiring extra help to pick their strawberries on Sundays just as on other days. (The defendant, G. W. Colcord, was arrested, not for working himself, but for letting his students wash clothes and saw wood on Sunday.)

Bill Burchard pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, saying he had not violated the Sabbath, because the Bible says Saturday is the Sabbath. Colcord—stoop-shouldered, aging, and wearing a giant patriarchal beard—appealed to the Declaration of Rights in the Tennessee Constitution, which said that “no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience.” The Declaration also forbade any preference to any religious establishment or mode of worship.

Judge J. G. Parks was sympathetic, but he said his was a secular not a religious court. The only question for the jury, he said, was what the law said and whether it had been violated. He pointed out that he had a sworn duty to enforce the law and ensure its respect.

Judge Parks then argued weakly that the Sunday law was not one that protects a particular belief but one that “protects the unanimous belief of nearly all Christian denominations.”

Then he presented his dilemma: “But here we have a very respectable element of Christian believers who are an honest, inoffensive, law-abiding people in all matters not conflicting with their sense of duty, who believe they are under divine command to observe the seventh day as the Sabbath. . . . If there were only one of them, he would be entitled not only to his honest belief but to the exercise of that belief, so long as in so doing he did not interfere with some natural right of his neighbors. . . . Do the defendants in keeping the seventh day and working on the first thereby interfere with any natural right of their neighbors? Or is it an artificial right created by human law?

To be continued . . .

Children’s Story – How Grandma Came for Christmas

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At last the day had come to open the money boxes! How long it had taken to fill them! What hard work it had meant, what careful saving, what giving up of candy and nice ribbons and special treats! To Hilda and Mona it had seemed as though they would never be allowed to open them, and sometimes they had even said it wasn’t worthwhile putting the money in.

But at last the day had come! It was a week before Christmas, and of course everybody was wanting all the money he could find for presents and new dresses and things. How glad the children were that they had heeded their mother and had kept the boxes unopened till now! Mother was right, after all.

Click! went the key in Mona’s little cash box, and there inside she saw the pile of pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and one half dollar. What joy! She counted it all up, and Hilda counted it afterward, just to make sure it was right. Four dollars and fifty-one cents! What a lot of money for a little girl!

“Now you open yours,” said Mona. “I wonder how much you have saved.”

Hilda’s was a strange looking money box, and it certainly held money tightly. It was such a job to get it out. She had to use a knife, but as she poked it in, out came the pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and two half dollars. It was a lovely sight.

“Oh,” said Mona, “you have more than I!”

“It looks like it,” said Hilda. “Let’s count it up. One, two, three. Why, I believe there’s more than five dollars!”

And so there was. It came to $5.28. How happy they were! Never had they had so much money to spend all at once.

Then came the big question. What should they spend it on? Soon they realized how little they had really saved.

There were so many things they wanted to buy, and most of them cost more than they had saved.

Mona thought she would like to get a pretty dress, but how far would $4.51 go? Hilda’s first thought was for a beautiful handbag, the kind with two pockets in the middle and a mirror. But again, how far would $5.28 go? Then they talked of other things they would like—so many things—but try as they would they could not stretch their money nearly far enough to cover all their desires.

“I’m getting tired of trying to decide,” said Hilda. “This money is a bother.”

“Do you know,” said Mona, “I wonder whether the trouble is that we are trying to spend it all on ourselves?”

Hilda sat very quiet and still. “Perhaps it is,” she said.

“Just for fun,” said Mona, “let’s try to think how we could spend it on some other people.”

“Mom, for instance,” said Hilda.

“Yes, or Grandma,” said Mona.

“All right. You write down what you would buy for them and I’ll do the same.”

So they both found pencil and paper and began to write. Hilda soon made a long list—long enough to use up her $5.28 many times over.

“You don’t seem to have put down much, Mona,” she said, looking at her paper.

“No,” said Mona, “but I’ve got an idea! I’ve thought of something that would be a beautiful present for both Mom and Grandma.”

“Oh, tell me,” said Hilda.

“Well,” said Mona, “you know how Mom has been longing to have Grandma come down here to stay with her for a while? Well, the only reason Grandma doesn’t come is that she can’t afford the fare and Mom can’t afford to send it to her. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were to send Grandma her fare ourselves, and invite her down to surprise Mom?”

“Mona, you are a genius!” said Hilda. “I should enjoy that much more than a new handbag. Let’s do it right now.”

“Isn’t it just lovely?” said Mona. “I’m so glad you like the idea. I’d much rather see Mom happy than have a new dress. Let’s get a pen and some writing paper. You’ll write the letter, won’t you?”

“All right,” said Hilda. “You tell me what to say.”

So together they wrote to Grandma:

“Our dear Grandma,

“We all want you very much to come down here for Christmas. Mona and I have been saving up for a long time, and we want to pay your fare. You will find it in this letter. Please be sure to come soon. We shall expect you next week.

“With lots of love from Hilda and Mona.”

“Oh, Mona,” said Hilda when she had finished writing; “whatever will Mom say when Grandma comes?”

“Oh, that’s part of the joy. She’ll be so pleased and surprised she won’t know what to do with herself.”

Picking up their money and putting on their coats, the two went down to the post office, bought a postal money order for $9, and mailed it to Grandma. Chuckling all over and enjoying their secret immensely, they returned home to await the big surprise.

For the next few days the girls could not settle down to anything. Every footstep made them jump, and every creak of the front gate gave them a start. They felt inside themselves that they had done something big and beautiful, and they just couldn’t keep still.

Every now and then they would burst out laughing, for no apparent reason whatever. Mother wondered what could have gone wrong with them. They often had innocent little secrets they tried to keep from her, but this was rather mysterious.

Then at last came a different knock at the door.

“Hilda, there’s someone at the door,” called Mother. “Please go and see who it is.”

But Hilda guessed that the great moment had come, and she wanted Mother to have the surprise they had planned so long. “Do please go yourself, Mom,” she said.

So Mother hurried to the door, thinking it was the postman or the milkman. She opened the door—and there stood Grandma, with her handbags and trunk, as though she had come to stay a month.

“Mother!” cried Mom. “Whoever—whatever! Isn’t this wonderful! But how did you come? Who could have dreamed you would be here for Christmas!”

“Why, didn’t you expect me?” said Grandma, equally surprised.

There was a loud giggle in the background.

“Those girls!” said Grandma. “I guess they are at the bottom of this.”

Then came the explanations, and everyone was happy.

After the excitement had died down, Grandma called the girls to her and, slowly and mysteriously, opened her trunk.

“I’m not too old to use my fingers yet,” she said, pulling out a couple of packages. “Here’s a little dress I’ve been making for you, Mona, and for you, Hilda, I’ve got a wee handbag.”

“Oh, no!” cried the girls together, looking at each other in amazement.

“Why, don’t you want them?” asked Grandma.

“Want them! They are just perfect,” said Hilda. “But how did you know? They are the very things we were going to buy for ourselves with the money we had saved in our boxes.”

“Were you!” exclaimed Grandma. “Do you know, girls,” she said, “I believe the Bible is right when it says, ‘He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will He pay him again’ ” (Proverbs 19:17).

 

The Storybook, Character Building Stories for Children, R & H Publishing Association, ©1989, 72–78.

Children’s Story – Tales of a Tennessee Chain Gang, Part III

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Judge Parks left his question unanswered, but it was clear where he stood. He said in closing, “I have serious doubts as to the justice of the law, but the remedy is not to be found in disobeying it, but in having it repealed.”

He fined the defendants $2.50 each, suspended the sentences, but asked them to pay the court costs. The Sabbathkeepers refused to pay the costs, choosing rather to go to jail. They explained their reasons by saying that the State had taken them from their homes and work for no just cause, and they simply submitted to the powers that be, but they refused to become parties in any degree to the iniquitous proceeding by the payment of a fine. They were given prison sentences of 20 to 76 days.

Bill Burchard left behind a note in his daughter’s autograph album: “Dear Hattie, This is the 6th day of March in the year 1895 a.d., in the Cove in Rhea County, Tennessee, in the so-called free America. I go to Dayton today expecting to go to jail for the crime (?) of believing the Bible. I was found guilty by the court. . . . Yet these things and worse happened in all ages to God’s people—why not to us? Verse 12 of 11 Timothy 3 says: ‘all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.’ I want you to be a good girl and live for God and His truth. That is the only thing we can live for in this world, that is worth living for. Read and meditate on Hebrews 11:32–40 [a brief history of persecutions suffered by Old Testament heroes], and you can see what awaits us only a little way in the future.”

Jailhouse life was not severe, but there were hardships involved in the incarceration. Several of the men were nearly penniless, and their families were left without support. Then, too, with three key staff members gone, Graysville Academy had to send its 100 students home two months early, some of them without the diplomas they had expected.

Sheriff Darwin was kind enough to put the men up in the two-story house attached to the jail rather than in the cells. The quarters, the Sabbathkeepers reported, were not “offensively dirty.” They were allowed to have visitors and were given access to the well in the front yard, thus escaping the mucky water from the jail-yard pump.

The residents of Dayton petitioned the court to release the prisoners, but in spite of the uproar in the nation’s press, the court denied the petition by a narrow margin. Judge Parks recommended to Governor Peter Turney that the prisoners be pardoned, and finally the last two still serving sentences were granted clemency, even though they gave no evidence of repentance.

Scarcely had they returned home when 20 more indictments went out for Graysville Sabbathkeepers. . . . The court convened in July. Some of the cases were continued, a few dismissed, but eight Sabbathkeepers—including Burchard and Colcord again were convicted. This time, however, their enemies had succeeded in reinstating the county chain gang—a practice that had not been followed for years.

To be concluded . . .

Children’s Story – Tales of a Tennessee Chain Gang, Part IV

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What is Happening: Although their sentences had been suspended, several Sabbathkeepers are serving time on a chain gang for refusing to pay court fines, because they believed the State had taken them from their homes and work for no just cause.

Shortly before nine o’clock in the morning on July 16, 1895, two heavy wagons lumbered out of Dayton loaded with picks, shovels, 18 prisoners, and an equal number of balls and chains.

Guarding Sabbathkeepers and common criminals alike, Deputy Sheriff Jim Howard cradled a double-barreled shotgun in his arms, as he rocked back and forth on the high seat of the wagon.

The wagons lurched for 18 miles over the dusty road that ran north from Dayton and stopped at an empty house near Spring City, Tennessee. The afternoon was spent filling straw ticks, making crude tables, and attaching old wagon wheels to the upstairs windows, to keep in the prisoners.

A convict, assigned to kitchen duty, prepared cabbage, onion bread, and sugar for supper, and Bill Burchard settled down for 50 days “on the hard rock ground.” After cold biscuits and molasses for breakfast, the Rhea County chain gang set to work breaking up rock for the approaches to a nearby bridge.

The first full day of work was a Friday, so when the Sabbathkeepers went to bed that night, they doubtless had special prayer about the events of the next day. They probably were waiting nervously when Deputy Howard clomped into their room the next morning.

“ ‘Spose this is the day ya’ll won’t do no work,” he said.

“That’s right, sir,” Pastor Colcord replied—as politely as he knew how.

“Well, don’t make no difference—I just won’t count your Saturdays against your sentence, and it wouldn’t do to have ya work tomorrow either.”

The deputy’s arbitrary decision was obviously illegal, but it was better to keep quiet than create a confrontation over working on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the Sentinel kept up weekly reports on every phase of the prisoners’ plight, and newspapers around the country kept up their barrage against the bigotry of Tennessee.

Once the Spring City job was done, the chain gang was moved to a two-story, log house about a mile and a half from Graysville. Burchard noted that this was really his first time behind bars, since all the windows were equipped with them. The weather was hot, though, so the guard left the front door open at night and stood on the porch.

When the last of the cases came to trial, the Sabbathkeepers enjoyed the free legal assistance of a former congressman from Tennessee and the attorney for the Cincinnati Southern Railroad of Chattanooga. The combination of their skill and the jury’s weariness over the whole affair won acquittals in the remaining cases.

In Bill Burchard’s last report, he said: “We are all well, healthy, and happy. The sun has been extremely hot today. One big fellow got so hot this afternoon he had to stop, but none of us has done that yet.

“They furnish us plenty to eat now, and as Brother Morgan is cook, it is well prepared. My time should be out in a week from today. I must close as it is dark, and the workhouse is out of lamp oil.”

What a privilege it is to be a citizen of these United States today. How thankful we can be for the freedom we each have to worship God, according to our individual beliefs. It is actually a rare privilege seen in the history of this earth. How carefully we need to guard this freedom.

Children’s Story – Snake in the Hen House – Part I

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And God created . . . every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good. And God blessed them, saying, . . . let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.” Genesis 1:21–23. [Emphasis supplied.]

It was the fifth day of creation week that God created chickens. I am so glad that He created chickens. They are wonderful pets. Do you know that God loves all the creatures that He created, and He wants them to be safe? Let me tell you about it.

One very pleasant evening in Arkansas, I was transcribing a sermon by Pastor John. It was all about Satan’s tricks and how he tries to fool us. The Bible calls Satan a “dragon” and a “serpent,” which is a snake. God wants us to recognize Satan’s temptations and to avoid them, like we would avoid a snake.

As I was happily typing away, all of a sudden a thought came into my head, “Lois, you had better go and close up your chickens.” You see, the only way to protect the chickens from the raccoons was to lock the chicken house at night.

I looked at the clock and objected, “Oh, I do not want to be interrupted right now. It is only five minutes before nine o’clock. I will do it later.” So, I went on typing.

A few minutes later, the thought voice was more insistent. “Lois, you need to shut up your chickens!” Looking at the time on the clock, I decided I might as well obey the persistent thought. So I saved my work on the computer, picked up my temperamental, old, red flashlight, and went outside toward the chicken pen.

The chicken house was divided in half (north and south), and each half had its own yard and its own group of chickens. I headed for the north side first. Click—the flashlight did not turn on. Click, click—finally the light came on.

I smiled, knowing what I would see inside the chicken house. Fluffy, a black, mother hen, would be on her nest, and her little chicks would stick their heads out through her feathers to look at the light. I would look around and count the chickens on the roosts to be sure they were all there. Keeter would be right in back of his mother, Fluffy. Keeter was half grown but handicapped with cerebral palsy, and he could not sit on the roost, so he stayed with Fluffy and the new babies.

I shined the light inside the chicken house. The nest was there, filled with something black, but it was not Fluffy! I could not believe my eyes. There was a huge, ugly, black snake, and he was trying to swallow Keeter! The light did not bother the snake at all. But where was Fluffy?

Before I could think what to do, God came to my rescue. The thought voice in my mind said, “Lois, do not try to be a hero. Go get Ken.”

I ran as fast as I could, bursting into the house, shouting, “Ken, there is a big, black snake in the chicken house, and it is swallowing Keeter.”

Ken jumped out of his chair and headed for the back door. I handed him the old, red flashlight and followed. As he ran out the door, he grabbed a shovel. Click, click, click. The flashlight would not come on. “Dear Lord,” I prayed, “please let the old, red flashlight work.” Click, click—nothing. As Ken got to the door of the chicken yard, the flashlight came on, just when he needed it. “Oh, thank you, Lord,” I breathed. But what would Ken do?

Children’s Story – Snake in the Chicken House, Part II

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What is happening: Lois, with her old, undependable flashlight, had gone to shut the chicken house doors for the night. Instead of seeing the black hen, Fluffy, on her nest with her chicks, she saw a big, black snake trying to eat another chicken, Keeter. She ran to the house for help from Ken.

As soon as Ken got to the chicken house, he shoved the shovel underneath the snake and tossed it in the air. The snake spit out Keeter and made a beeline for the door. Ken tossed it back into the chicken house under the roost where it writhed while he tried to kill it with the shovel. The snake was too fast and started to slither outside.

I did not know what Ken was doing, but the snake was rapidly disappearing into the darkness. I knew that if that snake got away, the chickens would never be safe again. I thought of Keeter. All of this happened in a flash, and in a split second of time, I knew what I had to do. As the snake’s tail was disappearing out the door, I reached down, grabbed it, and wrapped it securely around my hand.

Ugh! The snake’s tail was slimy and stinky, but I held on. It was not going to kill my Keeter and get away with it! I pulled with all my strength, but the snake did not budge. I called to Ken, “I am pulling the snake, but it does not give.”

Ken called back, “I have it pinned down out here. Can you hold it?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I said determinedly.

“Okay, here goes,” said Ken. I heard, chop, chop, chop, as Ken struck at the snake with the shovel. “This sure is a tough snake!” exclaimed Ken. Chop, chop, and then the snake went limp in my hands, and I was holding a three-foot tail portion of that very big, black snake.

But it was not over. The half of the snake with its head was underneath the chicken house. What would it do? Would it grow a new tail? Would it kill more of my precious pet chickens? And where were Fluffy and her chicks?

Ken and I looked under the chicken house with the flashlight, hoping to see the front half of the snake, but we could not see anything. Wherever it was, it was hanging on to something.

So we turned our attention to finding Fluffy and the babies. She had wisely taken her babies to a thick clump of tall weeds, and there she was, calmly sitting on the ground with the babies nice and warm underneath her! She was nervous about going back into the chicken house, so we freshened her nest and placed some of the babies in it. Fluffy looked all around, and when she saw that the snake was gone, she took possession of her nest once more and settled her babies. There was peace and quiet in the chicken house.

Immediately, the old, red flashlight went out, and we were never again able to get it to work. God kept it working just as long as we needed it!

We closed up both the north and south sides of the chicken house and went back into our house, but I was uneasy. I felt like the snake affair was not over, so I turned to my Heavenly Father again and prayed, “Lord, please let us see the top half of the snake.” Immediately I felt at peace and went to sleep.

To be concluded …

Children’s Story- Snake in the Chicken House, Part III

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What is happening: Lois found a big, black snake in her chicken house. Ken was able to cut it in half with a shovel. They had the tail half, but they could not see the head half. Would it regenerate a tail and threaten the chickens again?

Early in the morning, I was going to go out and open up the chicken house doors so the chickens could play and eat in their yards, but the thought voice said, “Not yet, Lois, do not let your chickens out yet.” Okay, that was no problem.

I read my Bible and claimed some wonderful Bible promises, and a little later, the thought voice said, “Lois, you may go out now.”

I was always happy to greet my pets in the morning, so I went quickly to let them out. Half way across the back yard, I noticed a long, black strip of something lying on the ground in the south chicken yard. The snake!

I ran back into the house, shouting, “Ken, the snake is in the south chicken yard!” He immediately ran outside, grabbing the same shovel he had used the night before, and within seconds he was in the south yard. I was close behind him. He nudged the snake. It barely moved; it was still alive but certainly not very active.

Ken made sure, with his trusty shovel, that this snake’s head and heart were separated. He threw the three-foot long top half of the snake into the woods, where he had thrown the three-foot long tail of the snake. We never had another snake in our chicken house or yards. There was peace in the whole neighborhood.

I learned many lessons from this experience:

  1. God will guide us, and it is good to listen and obey Him.
  2. God loves all the creatures, and He likes to see them safe and happy.
  3. We can pray about anything, no matter how trivial it may seem.
  4. If we go where we should not go and do what is bad, we will be in trouble.
  5. We can lose our lives by going where we do not belong.

The last two lessons are about the snake. I want to tell you about this snake. It was no stranger to our neighborhood. It had the bad habit of going into my neighbor John’s chicken house, sticking its head right underneath a setting hen and stealing and eating her eggs. It would take one each day.

It got so bad that in order to have some baby chicks, John brought me eggs for my hens to sit on and hatch! Since there were no more eggs in John’s chicken house, the snake just thought it might find eggs in our chicken house!

If this big, black snake had been satisfied to eat mice and rats in the woods where he belonged, he would still be alive and enjoying life. Now, do you think we enjoyed killing this snake? No way! We do not like to kill anything. And besides, non-poisonous snakes are beneficial—if they stay where they belong!

When you are tempted to go where a Christian should not go and do what a Christian should not do, always remember that you could lose your life—spiritually as well as physically—just as this snake lost its life when it went where it should not have gone.

Children’s Story – How Do I Love Thee

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While preparing to go to work one morning, Tom reminded his wife, Lara, that he was supposed to find out that day whether he would get the big promotion his boss had talked with him about the preceding week. Since Tom and Lara were struggling financially, the promotion, with its anticipated increase in salary, would be a wonderful answer to prayer.

As Tom left for work, Lara told him that she loved him and that she was praying for him.

The hours of the day passed, with no word on the promotion. Tom was really getting discouraged as he packed up his briefcase to go home for the day. Just then he received a call to report to his boss’ office. There he was given the news for which he had been waiting—he got the promotion!

Immediately Tom called Lara and told her the good news. She celebrated with him on the phone, and they offered a prayer of praise and thanksgiving. Lara then asked him to come straight home, because she had a surprise for him!

Since they lived close to Tom’s office, it was only ten minutes after hanging up the telephone that he walked into their house. All was dark inside—except for the candlelit dining room. The dining room table was set with their best china dishes and silver and there was a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers. Lara had spent the entire day preparing a wonderful dinner—Tom’s favorite! The children were sleeping over at their grandmother’s house, so Tom and Lara had the evening alone to celebrate their good fortune!

As Tom held Lara’s chair for her to be seated at the table, he noticed a card with his name on it leaning against one of the candles. When he was seated, he opened the card and read: “Congratulations on your promotion, Tom. I couldn’t be more proud of you! I love you dearly, Lara.”

That really touched Tom’s heart, and he told Lara how much it meant to him that she supported him so fully. Then, they proceeded to enjoy their evening together.

As Tom polished off the delicious dinner, Lara stood up to go to the kitchen for the special dessert she had made. When she walked away, a card fell from her pocket. It was identical to the one Tom had opened earlier. Curious, he picked it up and, while Lara was in the kitchen, opened it and read the message inside. In Lara’s neat handwriting was written: “I’m sorry that you didn’t get the promotion, Tom, but I couldn’t be more proud of you. I love you dearly, Lara.”

You see, Lara was going to tell her husband of her love and support regardless of how the promotion went. She prepared each card early that day, just before she started preparing the special meal.

What a beautiful illustration of unconditional love—the exact type of love that God has for you! No matter what has happened in your past, God is ready, willing, and able to forgive you—if you only ask.

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38, 39. God loves you, child.