From The Sun Herald, Biloxi-Gulfport, Mississippi, December 16, 1986, by Ron Grove.

Ron Grove, a staff writer for The Sun Herald of Biloxi-Gulfport, Mississippi, specializes in law-enforcement news. Recently, however, he wrote a touching column about some things he'd learned from his grandmother, a Christian Scientist. He is not a Christian Scientist. We felt his column would be of interest to our readers.

My grandmother said, "Remember, Ronald, you are God's perfect child," before we disconnected our long distance telephone conversation.

It was the day after Thanksgiving, and the thought of spending the holidays far away from my family was beginning to get to me. I had placed the call to Grand's home in Houston just so I could hear those words again.

She has always said that to me, ever since I was a little boy. It always brought me a good deal of comfort when I was down— whether it was because I was in trouble at school or because the other kids were picking on me that day. It's what I'll remember most about her.

I was six when my mother died. My grandmother, I call her Grand, took me and my baby sister to raise because dad, a traveling auditor for an insurance company, was home only one week out of every three.

While my dad was a believer in strict, if not harsh, discipline, Grand raised me with a gentle hand that was founded in her Christian Science faith. In fact, if there is any gentleness in me at all, I guess I owe it to her. And, though I am not a follower of Christian Science, I guess I owe it to her religion as well.

When I was young I went to a Christian Science Sunday school in Houston. Grand never made me go. I went because I wanted to be with her. Grand never forced her religion on anyone. To do so would have been a violation of what she believed in.

"We are all God's perfect children," she used to tell me.

Grand is a deep believer in Christian Science; all her philosophies are rooted in her faith, gentleness, forgiveness and love. This gives her a quiet, all-sustaining strength. It has helped her through 22 years of blindness.

Grand's faith will not allow her to accept a lot of the things many other people in this country believe in. She doesn't believe in capital punishment and she doesn't believe in hell. Grand thinks these are unforgiving concepts. Her favorite Bible verse is I Corinthians 13:13—"And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."

She's the only person I know who, if she can't say anything good about someone, will just be silent. She holds her peace because she believes that all people are good, even if others can't see that goodness on first glance, or the second, or the third.

Grand told me that God made us in his image and therefore we must all be perfect children. And she told me that about 30 years before the expression, "God don't make no junk," became popular.

When I was a boy, I suppose I was difficult for a lot of people to control. I did poorly in school. I was a discipline problem. And fighting was my favorite pastime.

My dad tried everything, from whippings, to lectures, to restriction and back again. But throughout all of that, and I lived with my grandmother for five years, the harshest words she ever said to me was a quiet, "Ronald, that's error."

When whippings, lectures and restriction wouldn't work, those three words brought me to my knees in remorse.

I remember one summer's day when I was seven, I came home crying because the other kids were playing baseball and no one wanted me on their team. In their childish cruelty, they called me names like "fatso" and "stupid."

Grand sat me on the couch and cradled my head in her arms. Softly and gently she stroked the back of my head.

"Remember, Ronald," she said. "You are God's perfect child."

Those were the same words she spoke to me on the telephone a couple of weeks ago, and she spoke them in the same tone of voice. It was not an expression solely designed to make me feel better. It was a quiet statement of fact. The thought of not believing never entered my head.

And as that belief helped me feel better when I was seven, so it did when I was 38.

"You are God's perfect child too, Grand," I said aloud after I hung up the phone. "But you've always known that, haven't you."