Children’s Story – Happy, Happy Home

It was seven o’clock and time for evening worship. Harold, Linda, and Betty Lou were in the living room with mother waiting for daddy Reed to come home. Daddy was a doctor, and sometimes he did not get home on time. The other members of the family usually waited a few minutes, hoping that he would join them.

Tonight they sang their best-loved songs. Betty Lou, who was five years old, never tired of singing “Happy, Happy Home.” Linda chose “Beautiful Zion, Built Above,” and Harold wanted “Smile and Be Cheery.”

“We’ll wait a little longer,” said mother. She got her favorite phonograph record out of the drawer, and they all listened quietly to the strains of “O Love of God.”

When the last verse of the song was finished, Harold began, “I know that God loves us, but how can we love God? I love you and daddy, and I love Linda and Betty Lou; but how can anyone love someone he has never seen?”

“Do you remember Aunt Rachel?” asked mother. “She sent packages to you every birthday with messages of love. She showed her love in many ways even before you ever saw her.”

Harold nodded his head in agreement. “In that same way,” continued mother, “God has shown that He loves us. When we try to think of all the things He has given us to make us happy, we never get through naming them.

“God covers the earth with beauty and fills the air with music. Every day He paints new pictures in the sky. He makes hundreds of delicious foods grow from the ground, each with a different flavor. Our Creator might have made the sky a dull brown instead of a rich blue. The grass might have been made gray. All the birds might have croaked like ravens instead of singing their lovely songs. The apples and peaches and pears and strawberries all might have tasted like potatoes.”

The children looked up to see daddy standing in the doorway. Soon three pairs of arms were around his neck. “I think God must love us a lot to give us such a daddy,” said Harold.

“And such a mother, too,” added Linda.

Daddy sat down and they told him what they had been talking about. This reminded him of a verse in the Bible that tells how the love of God comes into the heart, and how our heavenly Father is even more willing to give His Spirit to us than parents are to give good gifts to their children.

“You see,” said daddy, “God speaks to our hearts by His Spirit. He walks with us and talks with us, and as we listen to His voice, we know what we should do. In the Bible we read His letters, telling of the wonderful things He is preparing for those who love and obey Him. The most precious gift of all is Jesus, God’s only Son.”

Daddy closed the Bible, and the Reed family knelt in prayer.

“Let’s sing ‘Happy, Happy Home’ again,” said Linda when they arose. So they sang:

“With Jesus in the family, happy, happy home,

Happy, happy home,

Happy, happy home;

With Jesus in the family, happy, happy home,

Happy, happy home.”

Ella M. Robinson, Happy Home Stories, Teach Services, Inc., Ringgold, Georgia, 2005.