A school, made up chiefly of Jewish children, was in the charge of a Christian lady. Among the hymns that she taught her students was a sweet one beginning, “Seeing I am Jesus’ lamb.” Most of the students learned it in a short time, and they were very fond of singing it.
One day in the middle of summer, one of the students met the teacher and told her that the day before, one of the students of the school had fallen into the river and came very near being drowned.
The next Sunday this little fellow was in school again. The teacher spoke to him kindly and asked him how it happened that he fell into the water.
He said he was walking on a plank by the edge of the river, when he stumbled and fell into the water.
“Were you not very frightened when you found yourself in the water?”
“No, ma’am.”
“But what did you think about when the water closed over your head?”
“Why,” said the little boy, and his eyes sparkled as he spoke, “I thought over the words of the beautiful hymn you taught us:
“Seeing I am Jesus’ lamb,
He, I know, will lose me never;
When I stray, He seeketh me—
Death is but new life forever;
Father, to Thy home on high
Take me, for Christ’s lamb am I.”
“I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth His life for the sheep.... and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.”
Messages of God’s Love, 8/22/1965 (adapted)