God Guides Our Footsteps

[Of Special Interest to Children]

ALTHEA BROOKS HOLLENBECK

Jane loved Christian Science! She and the other children in her Christian Science Sunday School class were studying the Ten Commandments, which were revealed to Moses, the Beatitudes, which Jesus gave, and the definition of God, which Mrs. Eddy includes in Science and Health. This definition is found on page 587 and reads: "God. The great I am;the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence."

All the boys and girls in her Sunday School class loved to discuss this definition. Also, they loved to recite together the prayer which Mrs. Eddy wrote as a gift to little children. Most of them had learned it when they were much smaller. Jane had first learned to talk with God through this prayer.

One Sunday morning she recited this prayer to her classmates (Poems, p. 69):

Father-Mother God,
Loving me,—
Guard me when I sleep;
Guide my little feet
Up to Thee.

Then she told them that once when their car had stalled in the mountains at night, she and her mother had had to leave the car and walk over a very rough road to find someone to help them. Since she was so small at the time, Mother had thought that she would have to be carried. But she was saying the prayer to God. When she came to the lines,

Guide my little feet
Up to Thee,

she felt so rested that she insisted on walking and kept repeating the lines to the rhythm of her footsteps. When they reached help, it was found that she had walked almost a mile.

Soon after she had told this story to her class, she and Mother were downtown at the height of the Christmas shopping rush.

They were purchasing lovely things for a party they were to give. Jane carried a book in which they had listed all the things they meant to buy. Some things had been checked off the list before they entered this store. Here Mother asked for the list. But Jane didn't have it. She was unhappy. Mother was unhappy too.

Jane was about to cry, but she thought of the second commandment and knew that she must not bow down to any power but good. Then she thought of the definition of God, and again the line from the children's prayer came to her, and she prayed earnestly, "Guide my little feet." And that is just what God did!

She turned, walked directly to another store where she and Mother had shopped, and went to a book counter. There was the book! Silently she thanked her Father-Mother God, as she handed the book to her mother, who had followed her and was smiling down at her.

When we ask God to guide our footsteps, He never fails to do so. Thus is fulfilled the Scriptural passage (Isa. 30:21), "Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it."

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