BEING WITH THE HEAVENLY FATHER -

DEVOTIONS FOR LAMBS.

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No. 52
From Wendy Howard [Editor of Despatch magazine], Sunshine Coast, Qld, Australia.
Access Online  http://www.despatch.cth.com.au/Main/tabco_main

• Do some other kids make you feel as though you are a nerd?
• Do they make you feel that you are not popular?
• Do you feel as though you are outside their “circle?”

I was never popular at school.
I wasn’t very good at sport.
I was clever at my study, but not a good “mixer.”
I was quiet and a bit shy.
When I was about eight years old my mother gave me a beautiful bunch of roses
to take to the teacher.
I was wandering around the school grounds before the first class,
and I came across a few “IN” kids sitting on the grass together.
I sat near them.  They yelled at me to get away from them.
Then the leader kid said, “give me those flowers and you can sit with us.”
I was so lonely and felt so unhappy that I gave the stuck-up girl the roses
I had brought for the teacher.
Do you know they let me sit with them, but they didn’t talk to me or anything.
The bell went for classes not long after.
They laughed because they weren’t really my friends now at all.
You can’t buy friends with roses.

When we got into class, that leader kid gave my roses to the teacher.
She was my favourite teacher in the whole school as well!
It made my heart ache when the teacher was thrilled with the flowers.
She thanked that other kid for my flowers, and was nice to her all day!
The stuck-up girl and her friends sniggered at me all day,too!
It was so upsetting that I still remember it all these years later.
You are not the only one to ever feel lonely and a nerd.
I believe that most kids and grown-ups feel that way at some time in their lives.
I would have loved to know Jesus as my friend when I was a girl.
But no one told me about Him then.

God wants you to know that He has drawn a circle to include you.
He sent Jesus Christ to this earth to die for you.
So that you could be “IN” forever with the Father -
and all the angels in heaven, forever and ever.
That is what matters, not whether some snooty kids like you or not.
You don’t need friends like that anyway.
Just one good kid as a friend
is better than a whole gang of kids who don’t care about you.
You have the best of all friends in Jesus.
Do you have a good human friend as well?
If not, why not ask God to give you one. God answers prayer.
Ask God to make you friendly yourself, and you will find good friends.