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YOUR FRIEND, HERBIE
I owned a book years ago called Children's Prayers.
A little boy must have surveyed the cost of a life lived with the God
who makes war against all that hurts and cripples and suffocates people.
Seeing what God stands against and that he purposes to right all wrongs
and wanting to be a part of it the boy wrote this brief note: "Dear
God, count me in. Your friend Herbie."
The courage of some children is astonishing.
Haven't I personally seen little children throw themselves against a
drunken brute of a man who was attacking their mother! Literally thrown
out of the way they came at him again.
The sensitivity and
compassion of children is profoundly moving. Wasn't I there in a house
on the Shankill Road all those years ago when twelve year-old Jim was
sobbing at the loss of his granddad and eight year-old Aaron sat on the
arm of the chair, tear-filled and silent, with his arm around his best
friend's shoulder!
Such images stay with us vivid and creative even after twenty or sixty-five years.
To rise and in the name of God to confront the world is the courage we
need. To say with conviction: "Dear God, count me in" is no small thing.
And along with our courage, to have compassion and support for the
hurting is to be like Jesus.
Out of the mouths and lives of children God is calling his People to gallantry!
