TO ILLUSTRATE…
April 1, 1987
GOD'S LOVE
There is a natural, logical kind of loving that loves lovely things and lovely people. That's logical. But there is another kind of loving that doesn't look for value in what it loves, but that creates value in what it loves. Like Rosemary's rag doll.
When Rosemary, my youngest child, was three, she was given a little rag doll, which quickly became an inseparable companion. She had other toys that were intrinsically far more valuable, but none that she loved like she loved the rag doll.
Soon the rag doll became more and more rag and less and less doll. It also became more and more dirty. If you tried to clean the rag doll, it became more ragged still. And if you didn't try to clean the rag doll, it became dirtier still.
The sensible thing to do was to trash the rag doll.
But that was unthinkable for anyone who loved my child. If you loved Rosemary, you loved the rag doll-it was part of the package.
"If anyone says 'I love God' yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar," (1 John 4:20). "Love me, love my rag dolls," says God, "including the one you see when you look in the mirror. This is the first and greatest commandment."
- Ian Pitt-Watson
adapted from A Primer for Preachers
DEATH
When John Todd, a nineteenth-century clergyman, was six years old, both his parents died. A kind-hearted aunt raised him until he left home to study for the ministry. Later, this aunt became seriously ill, and in distress she wrote Todd a letter. Would death mean the end of everything, or could she hope for something beyond? Here, condensed from The Autobiography of John Todd, is the letter he sent in reply:
"It is now thirty-five years since I, as a boy of six, was left quite alone in the world. You sent me word you would give me a home and ...
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