Earlier this summer, after I returned from my course in the refugee camps, the kids and I had the opportunity to read a number of books, as we waited for Hadassah’s arrival (and Mama did her best to cope with the heat). One book we read together was
“Jessica’s First Prayer” (1867) by Hesba Stretton. The book centers around the friendship of little Jessica and Daniel Standring, which begins at a coffee-stall under a railway bridge in London.
Daniel Standring keeps to himself with good reason. He is a chapel keeper and the people in his well-to-do parish might not look kindly upon his second job of running a coffee-stall. But it’s here that he meets the barefooted, inquisitive Jessica. As their friendship grows and she comes to know of God’s love for her, the questions for Mr. Dan’el (as she calls him) deepen and began to reveal a hard, miserly man who has not truly surrendered himself to God. When Jessica becomes deathly sick and is abandoned by her mother, will her friend forsake his worldly gain to store up treasure in heaven.
The kids loved this book. As a father, the piece I enjoyed the most was little Jessica’s prayers and what she modeled to Nehemiah and Evangeline. They were so simple and yet powerful. Over and over again, when Daniel confessed a shortcoming or a need, she would simply say, “Why don’t you ask God for it?” For example, at the climax of the story, when Jessica is sick in bed, Mr. Dan’el begins to share just how wicked of a sinner he is, to which Jessica reminds him of the minister’s words that God loved us, while we were yet sinners. Here is the conversation that ensues:
“I’ve heard it so often that I don’t feel it,” said Daniel. “I used to like to hear the minister say it, but now it goes in at one ear and out at the other. My heart is very hard, Jessica.”
By the feeble glimmer of the candle, Daniel saw Jessica’s wistful eyes fixed upon him with a sad and loving glance; and then she lifted up her weak hand to her face, and laid it over her closed eyelids, and her feverish lips moved slowly.
“God,” she said, “please to make Mr. Dan’el’s heart soft, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.”
She did not speak again, nor Daniel, for some time. He took off his Sunday coat and laid it over the tiny shivering frame, which was shaking with cold even in the summer evening; and as he did so he remembered the words which the Lord says he will pronounce at the last day of reckoning: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
Order the book to enjoy this rich story.
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