ANNIE was a very timid little girl and did not like to be left alone in a dark room. Sometimes at night, when the wind blew very hard, she would wake up and be afraid.
One day her mother put her to bed, and after giving her a “good-night” kiss, was just leaving the room, when she heard Annie say,
“Mother!”
She went back to the little girl’s bed to see what she wanted.
“O mother! I hear such strange noises, and the windows rattle so.”
“It is only the wind blowing down the chimney that you can hear,” said her mother, “and it blows the windows too. I will try and fasten them more tightly.”
Then she put some little wooden wedges in the windows, so that they did not rattle any more, and sitting down by Annie’s side she said,
“You don’t feel afraid now, darling, while I am with you, do you?”
“O no, mother, I don’t feel afraid of anything while you are here.”
“Yet, Annie, God can take better care of you than I can, and He is with you all the time. I will teach you a beautiful verse from the Bible, and then you can say it to yourself whenever you feel afraid:
Annie repeated this verse several times, until she knew it by heart, and then she said,
“Now, mother, you can go downstairs, I don’t think I shall be afraid any more if I know that God is watching over me and telling His angels to take care of me.”
ML 01/01/1933