Justina said good-by to the girl who always took her to Sunday school and then she ran gaily up the walk to her home. She wanted her mother and father to go to the Sunday school with her, and to take her to the meeting in the evening, and she had asked them often, but they had always refused. But she was sure they would be anxious to go with her this evening.
“There will be a meeting this evening,” she announced. Mother and daddy were sitting on the porch playing with the baby.
“There usually is on Sunday evening,” mother said in a matter-of-fact voice.
“But this is a very special meeting,” the child insisted handing her mother her Sunday school paper. “A man who teaches the Chinese people about God will be there. My Sunday school teacher said for each of us children to be sure and come and bring our parents.”
Her mother glanced at her paper, and then laid it aside. Her father sat looking out at the street, apparently not listening to a word Justina was saying.
“Will you go?” Justina asked. Mother shook her head.
“I have to put the baby to bed.”
“Well, you go, Daddy?” Justina ventured timidly.
“I have to write some letters,” he told her.
“But my Sunday school teacher said for us to be sure to bring our parents.”
“Please, Justina, go to your room and change your dress. We can’t go, and that is that,” Mother said, then added, “and of course you can’t go alone, so you had better forget all about it.”
Tears of disappointment burned in the little girl’s eyes as she entered the house. She had been so sure that her parents would want to go with her this night. She wanted so to have them hear about the Lord Jesus, but now it looked as though they never would. A shiver ran up the little girl’s spine. Her Sunday school teacher had said that anyone who didn’t believe in Jesus would never go to heaven. That meant her parents would go to hell.
“O, no! They must not,” she cried.
Then she remembered a memory verse her Sunday school teacher had taught her.
“I want my parents to go tonight, so they will hear about Jesus,” she reasoned. “But I must pray.” So Justina knelt bide her bed and prayed this little prayer.
“O, God, please make my mother and daddy want to go to meeting tonight so they will hear about Jesus and be saved and not go to hell. I know Thou wilt answer my prayer. I thank Thee in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
Justina did not know that her parents had followed her into the house and down the hall to her room, and that they were just outside her door listening when she prayed. But she did know that her parents went with her that night, and that they accepted the Lord Jesus as their Saviour. You see, God had prepared her parents’ hearts, so when they heard their little girl praying for them, they wanted to know her God.
ML 08/31/1941