Article November 15, 1969 Issue

Children Belong to God

[For parents]

JOANNE SHRIVER LEEDOM

Terror struck the heart of the young mother. Turning away from her sick child, she opened her Bible to gain some release from the intense fear that gripped her. The story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac, his only son, had a God-sent message for her that night as she studied carefully the account found in the twenty-second chapter of Genesis. A short time later, when she returned to the child, the little one was sleeping naturally. The fever was gone. The child was healed.

This was the first experience that mother had had with the intense fear that sometimes grips parents during the course of rearing their children. Since that night some twenty years ago this mother has met many crises concerning her children. At times the fear has reached panic proportions as she has faced accidents and illness, but the message of the story of Abraham and Isaac has always returned to give her strength and courage to trust her children to God and rely wholly on Christian Science for healing.

The Bible says that Abraham was tempted—tested—of God. Surely his testing was the same as that of many parents who look upon their children as material beings and personal possessions, belonging to them alone. Isaac was dear to his father—truly a child of promise—and the demand to sacrifice him upon the altar was indeed a hard one. But Abraham's complete willingness and honest desire to be guided of God brought home a great lesson to the patriarch. He gained a glimpse of the Christ, the true nature of God, divine Love, and realized that man is the child of God— knowledge that saved his son. And he received God's great promise, "By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies."^{ Gen. 22:16, 17;}

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