RUTH’S mother was thankful when those in authority at the hospital told her that she might stay with her little daughter when after a long illness, the little girl had to be taken there for an operation. Ruth was quiet and patient; she seldom complained, and never said anything to show how she felt about the operation through which she was to pass. She did not seem frightened, and she met every one with a brave smile.
Being with her night and day, her mother noticed that she was careful to keep her handkerchief in a place where she could get it easily. There was nothing strange about that, but her mother also observed that whenever the nurse brought her a clean handkerchief, Ruth would transfer to it something that was tied into the corner of the one she had. Her mother was naturally curious about the mysterious something of which the child was so careful, and one day she gently asked her what it was she guarded with so much solitude. Ruth looked up with tears in her eyes,
“I found it,” she answered, “in the drawer when we left home, and I wanted to have that much with me.”
She let her mother untie the knot in the corner of the handkerchief, and there, in a tight roll, was a leaf from the Bible:
She wanted “that much” with her: she could take “that much” ‘to the operating room; she could keep “that much” in her hand when the dressings were made. She had it when the stitches were taken out, and it meant, O, so much to her! On the leaf of the Bible was this verse,
What confidence and strength it gave our dear little girl to know the Lord was with her, and by her side in her time of trial. He will give us the same grace, if we put our trust in Him, and sustain us in our difficult times.
ML 04/06/1924