Читать книгу Hope’s Daughters - R. Wayne Willis - Страница 62

Where I attend church, there are prayer request cards in the pew racks. Worshipers are invited to write a few words about someone “for whom we are praying” and to sign their own name.

A little seven-year-old girl has filled out three cards over the last few weeks. The first one reads: “Please help the people that need your love and gidens.”

The second: “People whom are in the hospitel and whom are about to die and the ones whom are hurt.”

The third: “Please help the people that do not have any food or something to drink please help the people who are poor! Please help them be safe and helthy.”

That third one ends with the salutation “Love,” followed by her name, followed by her drawing of a heart. On the other side of the card she drew a girl with long hair and a smile on her face who is being followed by a little dog. They are walking toward a body of water with a slide or a ladder going down into it.

Some Sundays she is the only one in church who fills out a prayer request. I suspect that she may be closer to the angels, closer to pure religion than the adults on her pew and in the pulpit. One thing all the great religions of the world teach is compassion for the poor and needy. At the tender age of seven she already has got it—sensitivity to the needs of the dying, the hospitalized, the hungry, and the poor. Her parents should be very proud of her, and they are.

Jesus told the adults, “If you don’t change and become like a child, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.”53 You wonder what he might have meant.