You don’t have to be a grown-up to be one of God’s workers. Some of His workers are very young. In the Bible we read of Samuel as a little boy, a little maid, a young boy with his lunch, and even a very young king who were all used by God for His special purposes.
Trevor, who is nine years old, and his mother live next door to the Bells. Sometimes Trevor helps Mr. Bell as he works in the yard. The Bells have an aboveground swimming pool with a ladder attached to it, and the ladder had come undone from the side of the pool.
While Mr. Bell was untangling the ropes to tie the ladder to the pool, Trevor, who sometimes swam in their pool, dove underwater. Mr. Bell sat down in one of the deck chairs to work on the ropes, but the chair was not all the way open. He tumbled over the side of the pool deck and landed on the ground several feet from the pool. As he hit the ground, he heard something crack!
The next thing he remembers was hearing Trevor calling his name from the side of the pool and jumping up and down. “I couldn’t get the breath to talk to him,” Mr. Bell said. “I rolled over, and he said to me, ‘You can do all things in Christ that strengthens you!’”
Mr. Bell had taught Trevor that Bible verse in Philippians 4:13, and he said it was enough motivation to get enough breath to tell Trevor to go find help. Mr. Bell said later, “That little boy had enough smarts to give me that scripture, where I knew I had enough in me, through God, to be able to breathe.”
Trevor said when he saw Mr. Bell was hurt, he remembered what he had learned from police and firefighters—”Don’t panic! If somebody gets hurt, you don’t ever panic; just run and go get help as soon as you can.”
Barefoot and wearing his swimsuit, Trevor ran up the driveway to his own house, where his mother was making dinner. He called, “Mom, Mom! Uncle George is hurt really bad and he can’t breathe!”
Trevor was doing a good job of following the directions he had learned, starting with a Bible verse he had memorized. Many of you boys and girls learn the memory verse in these Sunday school papers each week. “Thy Word have I hid in mine heart” (Psalm 119:11). They are good verses to remember and use in different situations that you come up against in school, on the playground or in your neighborhood. The verse that Trevor used was perfect for Mr. Bell and enabled him, with God’s help, to talk to Trevor and tell him what to do.
Trevor and his mother ran next door and found Mr. Bell lying in the grass. She called 911, and she and Trevor sat with Mr. Bell, keeping him still and keeping the mosquitoes off of him until the paramedics arrived.
“He was trying to talk, but he couldn’t breathe,” Trevor’s mother said. “He kept saying, ‘My neck ... I think I broke my neck.’” She made sure not to touch Mr. Bell or move him. Later, she said the doctors told her if she had moved him even an inch, he would have been paralyzed.
Mercy Flight took Mr. Bell to the hospital, where X-rays showed that his neck was broken, along with three ribs.
Doctors gave him a collar to wear and sent him home, where he stayed in bed for several days, waiting for his appointment for a spinal surgeon a week later. The Monday after the accident, a Christian prayer group came to the Bell’s home and prayed for his recovery.
On Wednesday he went to the spinal surgeon, and Mr. Bell said the doctor told him they could not find any sign his neck had ever been broken. The X-rays showed his seventh vertebra was completely intact.
Mr. Bell tells about the passage in the Bible, John 6:24, which describes a blind man healed by Jesus. “He said, ‘I was blind and now I can see,’” Mr. Bell said. “One thing I can tell you, I had a broken neck, and now I don’t.”
At his home, Mr. Bell has a folder filled with cards and well wishes from friends and neighbors, including a handwritten letter from Trevor. Trevor wrote it when Mr. Bell was in the hospital. “Uncle George, I hope your neck is healed by the Lord,” Trevor wrote in the big block letters of a child. “I love you, and I’m praying for you.”
Mr. Bell says he has faith there is a good reason he came through the accident without serious injury. “I had a good chance of winding up being paralyzed,” he said. “But God has something else for me to do. And praise God Trevor was there. The Lord used him in a mighty way.”
Some of you children who have accepted the Lord Jesus as your very own Saviour have friends at school and in your neighborhood who have never heard the way of salvation. When they ask you why you go to Sunday school, you can tell them about Jesus dying on the cross for your sins and how they can be saved too. And sometimes they may ask why you don’t do certain things. Many of the Bible verses you have memorized are gospel verses that you can tell them. This may be one special way the Lord wants to use you as one of His workers—for a friend to hear about Jesus and His love.
“The entrance of Thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple” (Psalm 119:130).
MEMORY VERSE: “The entrance of Thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.” Psalm 119:130
ML-01/04/2009