It was four o’clock on a bright Lord’s day afternoon, the last hymn had been sung, and the children were all eager to be let out of Sunday school, when the speaker said, “We should be so glad if any boy or girl would stay with us to a short prayer meeting we are going to have this afternoon.”
Several children remained, and among them a bright-faced girl about twelve. She knelt very quietly in a corner with her face buried in her hands, while short earnest prayers were being offered up. Then she tried to slip away without being noticed, but her teacher laid a hand on her shoulder and said kindly, “Why won’t you trust Jesus, Dorothy?”
The child laughingly shook off the detaining hand and darted into the street. Then her face grew very grave, and Dorothy said wearily to herself, “That’s what they all say, ‘Why won’t you trust Jesus?’ and they can’t see how all the time I am longing to know Him, but I can’t understand it. I don’t know the way to be saved. I wish I did—Oh, I wish I did!”
Late that night Dorothy went up to her room. All the evening she had tried to be her usual cheerful self, but there was such an aching in her heart, poor child—she was longing to know the Good Shepherd, and she knew not how.
Kneeling down by the window, she laid her head upon the sill and let her tears flow.
“Oh, if Jesus were here, if He lived on earth now,” she thought, “I would go straight to Him, and tell Him all about it. I would tell Him that I caot understand how to be saved, and He would help me to find the way.”
Suddenly a bright thought came to her— “Wasn’t Jesus there all the time with her in her room? Even though she could not see Him, mightn’t she speak with Him just the same? Why hadn’t she done it before?” And there in the deepening twilight, Dorothy told Jesus all—how unhappy she was and how she longed to be saved. Long she knelt there—she had so much to tell the Lord Jesus—and when at last she got up from her knees, her face was peectly radiant with happiness. The Lord Jesus had taken the trouble all away. She had found the way to be saved, and trusted Him at last. Now her sins were all washed away in His precious blood.
“He who for our sins was slain,
Lives and dwells above again,
Where He’s waiting to receive
All who will His love believe.”
ML 06/20/1954