TOO YOUNG TO VOTE—BUT NOT TO PRAY

BY SADIE CURLEE

In my Sunday School class, my teacher and I like to work on special projects. Recently, I completed a binder titled, "Safe with God." It's filled with quotes and verses about God's safety, which I found in the Bible, the Christian Science Hymnal, Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, and Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, also by Mrs. Eddy. I decorated the pages with scrapbook stickers and cut-outs to make them pretty. This summer, I took my binder with me to summer camp to help me pray about any challenges that came up. When I got home, it was time for me to pick a new Sunday School project.

I decided to look through the local newspaper to find issues to pray about. The paper was full of articles about the upcoming US presidential election, but I didn't want to read any of them because I thought they'd be boring. But my Sunday School teacher helped me see that even though I was too young to vote, I could still pray about the leadership of my country. In class we'd mention articles we'd both seen. And we'd both picked up on a kind of division and criticism in the articles, so we began to talk about two main ideas together.

First, we reasoned there could only be one true Leader of our country and the world, God. We looked in the Bible for examples of God's leadership. The story of Daniel in the lions' den reminded me that when Daniel was thrown to the lions for praying to God instead of King Darius, he was completely protected. When the king saw that God had saved Daniel, he saw how important it was to proclaim God as the true Leader. I also liked where Mary Baker Eddy wrote: "The government of divine Love is supreme. Love rules the universe, and its edict hath gone forth: 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me,' and 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' Let us have the molecule of faith that removes mountains,—faith armed with the understanding of Love, as in divine Science, where right reigneth. The revered President and Congress of our favored land are in God's hands" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 278). After reading this, my teacher and I talked about how no matter who wins in an election, we can pray to support them; to support that they will be led by God's intelligence in making decisions.

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TOO YOUNG TO VOTE—BUT NOT TO PRAY

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