Puckered sewing

(J.R. Miller)

There is a rich home which I visit, in which the most sacred and precious household treasure is a piece of puckered sewing.

A little child one day picked up the simple handkerchief which her mother was in the midst of sewing. After half an hour's quiet work, the child brought it to her, saying, "Mother, I's been helping you, 'cause I love you so."

The stitches were long and the sewing was puckered-but the mother saw only beauty in it all, for it told of her child's love and eagerness to please her. That night the little one sickened, and in a few hours was dead. No wonder the mother keeps that piece of puckered sewing among her rarest treasures. Nothing that the most skillful hands have wrought among all her household possessions, means to her half so much as that handkerchief with the child's unskilled work on it.

In the same way, the things we do out of love to God, though they may be marred and imperfect, are precious to Him!

"And whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is My disciple, surely I declare to you, he shall not lose his reward!" Matthew 10:42