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September, 193T
Junior King's Business By M A R TH A S . HOOKER
H I S H A N D S B y ' E v e l y n M c F a KL a N e MoCnJsiiY
H ARRY stood dejectedly just' outside the circle. The other children of the Daily Vacation Bible School had been enjoying games during recess. Finally the visiting teacher said, “Won’t you join the game this time, Harry?” He glared at her. There was a moment of bitter silence; then he turned and walked away. Teacher followed. “ It’s bad enough to be the way I am,” stormed Harry, “ without you rubbing it in.” “ I beg your pardon. I didn’t know there was any reason for your not playing.” The eyes of a wounded soul searched her face. “Ain’t you noticed that my clothes are different from the other kids’ ?” He indicated a large pocket on the right- hand side. His hand was in his pocket. “ I don’t never take it out, ’cept when I for- get.” “ I haven’t seen your hand. I really didn’t know that you don’t play as others play. If you have injured your hand, I’m :sorry. Let’s go over here while you show :me in private.” Reluctantly, he turned his back to the crowd and moved with Teacher to a place of privacy, pulled his hand from his pocket, and truly shocked the beholder by the little stub and its four little boneless marble-sized pieces of finger and the larger piece of boneless flesh for a thumb. The whole hand of this eleven-year-old was about two inches wide by two and a half inches long. At remote intervals on this two-inch frontage were the boneless little pieces about a fourth of an inch in diam eter. His other hand, his left, was nearly the size of a small man’s hand. This, too, he kept encased in another pocket. “ I was born this way,” Harry declared defiantly, “ and I don’t even like your les sons. If God made me, I. hate God. I can’t do nothin’ like other kids.” . Teacher’s heart throbbed. Tears blurred the view of the strange little hand. Sud denly she felt very helpless. She knew that Harry needed very present help. At that moment he said, and his voice was suddenly soft, “ I don’t blame the kids for not wantin’ to take hold of me when we make the circle for ‘Drop the Handker- ■chief’ or ‘Farmer in the Dell.’ Nobody wants to touch me.” Teacher put out her hands and covered his small deformed one. “ God wants to touch you. Please don’t hate God. He has given you hands like this so that you will always be close to Him. If you had hands like those of every other boy, you :might not know how beautiful it is to have •God holding on to you. “ Did you ever hear of how shepherds
used" tt> break th e l e g o f a little lamb ? If the lamb showed signs of getting into trouble and danger by fall ing over rocks or being caught in b r a m b l e b u s h e s , t h e shepherd would a c t ua l l y break the lamb’s leg, then tende r ly w o u l d p u t splints ar ound the broken part and c a r r y the
join the game this time, Harry?" “ See this small piece of chalk. I am placing it in my hands. Now see whether you can pull them apart.” Harry’s strong left hand seemed to have the power of two as he pulled on the fingers. “Say,” he said, “ how can you hold it so tight?” “Because it’s harder to take something out of the hand than from any other place. Think of being in God’s hand! Nothing ever could snatch you out. You have two things to think about, Harry: one, that God wants to hold your hand; the other, that He wants you to be safe in His hand.” “That’s something to think about, all right. I guess I need God more than the other kids do, after all.” Teacher talked with him for a few min utes more, and they bowed their heads while she held both his hands in hers and dedicated him to the Lord. # * v * The next day all the boys and girls were learning John 5:24. Teacher drew two great circles on the floor side by side. In one she wrote the word “ Death,” in the other, “Life.” One at a time, the children came and stood in the circle named “ Death” while they began to recite their memory verse. When they came to the place, “ is passed from death,” they stepped over into “Life.” A dozen or more children had glibly poured forth the words and had gone through the motion of stepping from “ Death” into “Life,” when Harry came forward. He immediately stepped into “ Life” and said, “ I don’t need to go in that ‘Death’ circle, because I stepped into ‘Life’ yesterday, and God is holding my hand. And I’m ,not ashamed of it no more.” He held it up before the group and said, “ If you’ve been so curious to see this, here it is; take a look at it. You
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little lamb in his tunic, by his heart. Then this little lamb with the broken leg would have the best care of all the lambs and all the sheep in the whole flock, and by the time the leg would get well, that little lamb would know the shepherd’s voice and would know how the shepherd had whis pered his love and tenderness; and ever afterwards, that little lamb would stay close by. “ Harry, before you were born, before you ever thought of disobeying God, He loved you so much that He gave you these hands, and all the time He must have, thought, ‘Now Harry can’t do things for himself, so he will depend upon Me to do them for him. While he’s close to my heart, I’ll love him so much, and tell him so many wonderful things, and give him such a fine mind, and such a warm heart, that every one will marvel; and because he endures his hands, and loves Me, I shall give him beautiful hands when I give him his new body, and I shall give him special honors as My son when he comes to live with Me.’ “ Did you ever think, Harry, of the won derful things God has made with His hands? And now in the heavenlies at the right hand of God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ has hands with scars where the nails pierced Him and hung Him on the accursed cross. Do you know why He hung there, Harry? It was because you were going to have to die and be in dark ness and in pain forever and ever and ever. Christ loved you so much that He died in your place. Let’s look at this message in John 10: ‘My sheep hear my voice, . . . and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand’ (vs. 27, 28, R.V.).
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