Article December 16, 2013 Issue

Stolen bikes and selfless prayer

Janet Berry

As I was driving to church one Sunday, I was silently praying for guidance in teaching Sunday School to my two grandsons, who I had in the car with me. I wanted to help them understand the relevance of the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, in their every moment and every day of their lives. Very quickly, I had my answer.

Friday evening, just two days prior, my grandsons’ bikes had been stolen off their front porch. I knew this would be the focus of discussion in our class. My eldest grandson had just downloaded the TMC Youth app “GoVerse” to my phone the week before (see goverse.org). Of course, being on a phone for my grandsons is always an attention grabber, so I thought I would use this new app to begin our lesson. I scrolled through the different subjects. We settled in on three. Forgiveness, identity, and self-worth.

I never mentioned praying to get their bikes back. The focus was to pray for whoever had taken their bikes. We talked about how we can love and forgive a child of God, and that we are all children of God. In First Peter, in the Bible, it says to “pay them back with a blessing” (3:9, New Living Translation). And in Psalms we read, “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace” (37:37). I explained that whoever had taken the bikes might not have known they were a beloved child of God, but we can know that about them and their true identity. Each one of us has everything we need through Christ and nothing can be taken from us. We are not defined by what we have or what we think we own.

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