A Moment With Pastor Fred

Night time reading last year included Keep a Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliot. How it refreshed my soul before falling to sleep. Let me share one of my favorites.

“A sensitive, timid little boy, long years ago, was accustomed to lie down to sleep in a low trundle bed, which was rolled under his parents’ bed by day and was brought out for his use by night. As he lay there by himself in the darkness, he could hear the voices of his parents, in their lighted sitting room across the hallway. It seemed to him that his parents never slept; for he left them awake when he was put to bed and found them awake in the morning. This thought was a cause of cheer to him, as his mind was busy with imaginings in the weird darkness of his lonely room. After the loving good-night words and kisses, this little boy was accustomed, night by night, to call out, ‘Are you there papa?’ And the answer came back, ‘Yes, I am my child, I am here.’ And the little fellow would fall asleep restfully with those assuring good-night words.

That boy, himself a father and grandfather, lies down to sleep, and is accustomed to look up through the shadows of his earthly sleeping place into the far-off light of his Father’s presence, and call out in the same spirit of childlike trust, ‘Father, you’ll take care of me tonight, wont’ you?’ And the answer is, ‘He that keepeth thee will not slumber. The Lord shall keep thee from all evil. He shall keep thy soul. Sleep, my child in peace.’”

The story was told to Elisabeth’s grandfather – who told her. She suspects that little boy was her great-grandfather. I love it. How often I am reminded that my heavenly Father will be up all night working on my problems. Rest well, dear child in the arms of our loving “Abba Father.”