MY DEAR LITTLE READERS, I have a true story to tell you of how the Lord Jesus answers the prayers of the lambs of His flock, who come to Him with their troubles, even though they be only about their playthings.
There was once a little girl, whom I knew very well, playing ball out in the sunshine on a nice, warm, bright day. She was throwing the ball up against a wall, and then before it would reach the ground, catching it in her fat, chubby little hands, as I expect you have often done.
Well, after she had been amusing herself thus for some time, the ball, after leaving her hand, instead of coming back again, disappeared suddenly.
It could not be found at all, high or low. A moment before it had been in Hannah’s hand, and now that it was nowhere to be found, puzzled her little brain.
Not long before this, Hannah had become a believer in the Lord Jesus, and she knew that He was the hearer and answerer of prayer, for He had often helped her to find things which she had lost.
So after she had looked for the ball in every place she could think of, it suddenly occurred to her that she had not asked the Lord Jesus to help her find it. “Why, how silly I am,” she thought, “to forget that; I must do it at once.”
So down she went on her knees in the yard, regardless of the dirt, or of her clean dress, asking the Lord to show her where her treasure was hidden.
Five minutes had not gone by when she was running in to Mamma with her precious ball clasped tightly in her hand, crying out, “O, Mamma! Mamma! just listen how the Lord Jesus helped me to find my ball. I was playing with it, and suddenly it got lost, and I looked and looked for it, and yet I couldn’t find it, and still I didn’t think of asking Jesus to help me find it, and then suddenly I remembered I hadn’t asked Him, so I knelt down and asked Him to show me where my ball was, and, Mamma,” she gasped, out of breath by this time with talking so fast, “I hadn’t got up from my knees, I hadn’t opened my eyes, before I thought, Why, I haven’t looked under those boards, you know, Mamma, by the carriage-house; so I went and looked, and oh, there was my ball!”
Hannah is a big girl now, but though it is a long time since that little incident happened to her, she still remembers it, and now whenever she loses anything, or is in trouble of any kind, she goes and tells the Lord Jesus and He always helps her, as He will you, dear little reader, if you tell Him your little troubles. No matter where you are; or what you are doing, if you just lift your heart to Him and ask Him to help you, He will do it. He is more ready to answer our prayers than we are to offer them up.
Dear little readers, may this simple story teach you to take all your troubles and trials, (no matter how small or insignificant to others,) to Jesus who is always ready and willing to aid you.—Selected.
ML 03/11/1900