Jesus Loves Me

Thirty years ago, my husband and I brought home our first-born child. As we droved up the snowy road to our country home and the baby slept, I should have been so excited but what began was one of the darkest moments of my life. It's called Clinical Depression.

For months I cried, slept little, had no appetite and would put my daughter in her crib as she cried unceasingly day in and day out, shut her bedroom door, and will myself to walk away so that I wouldn't harm her.

I thought of suicide and ending my life, the darkness was so overwhelming and there was no light.

My doctor told me I had "housewives disease" and the minister at my church said, "Christians don't get depressed."

One day when things were at the bleakest and I was going to take action of some sort, a phone call out of the blue, my old childhood minister had called just to see how I was doing. A divine intervention from God. I began to cry and told him how depressed I was and didn't want to live and didn't know what else to do.

He said to me, "I get depressed too, and when I do I sing. Something as simple as Jesus Loves Me. God will give you one day at a time, sing as much as you have to."

He then shared some other simple tips. "Try to do one new thing a day, make a goal of a walk with your daughter, a special dish for dinner." After we hung up, I began to sing... and continued to do so for the next nine months until the last of the depression had passed.

Thirty years later, singing is still something I do daily. And I love the songs that were so precious to me as a child.

Jesus Loves Me was written by Anna Bartlett Warner (1827 - 1915) to cheer a dying boy. A song written for a child that has blessed millions of children the world over since it was penned in 1860. David Rutherford McGuire added stanzas two and three and later in 1862, William B. Bradbury composed the music and added the refrain.

If trouble has you bound tightly, your belly in knots, your heart broken, remember the precious picture of Jesus calling the little children to come and scolding the stodgy disciples who tried to "shush" them away. And sing this song picturing yourself firmly on Jesus' knee.

God has such a sense of humor. He refers to us in many terms but one of my favorites is Grasshoppers. Reminds me of the old movies where the master instructor is talking to his grasshopper. How appropriate.

Isaiah 40 is a wonderful chapter to use as a prayer. It reminds us:

Who can equal God and whom did He consult when He created everything? NOBODY!

I LOVE THAT.

And it's so funny because the literal translation in verse 22 calls us Grasshoppers. Yet it blesses me completely because God loves His grasshoppers and we are so precious to Him.

It ends with a reminder in verse 31 that if we wait on the Lord, He will renew our strength and give us wings like eagles!

Betsy ten Boom said to her sister when they entered Ravensbruck, "Corrie, we are in hell."

I cannot begin to comprehend that statement; yet these two women never deviated from their faith in God. Betsy died from starvation and complications at the ripe old age of 59. Four family members entered the death camps; only Corrie survived.

Take time to pray this chapter/prayer and may you receive comfort from our Heavenly creator. Isaiah 40, Young's Literal Translation

¹Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people, saith your God.

²Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her, That her warfare hath been completed, That accepted hath been her punishment, That she hath received from the hand of Jehovah Double for all her sins.

³A voice is crying -- in a wilderness -- Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, Make straight in a desert a highway to our God.

⁴Every valley is raised up, And every mountain and hill become low, And the crooked place hath become a plain, And the entangled places a valley.

⁵And revealed hath been the honour of Jehovah, And seen [it] have all flesh together, For the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken.

⁶A voice is saying, `Call,' And he said, `What do I call?' All flesh [is] grass, and all its goodliness [is] As a flower of the field:

⁷Withered hath grass, faded the flower, For the Spirit of Jehovah blew upon it, Surely the people [is] grass;

⁸Withered hath grass, faded the flower, But a word of our God riseth for ever.

⁹On a high mountain get thee up, O Zion, Proclaiming tidings, Lift up with power thy voice, O Jerusalem, proclaiming tidings, Lift up, fear not, say to cities of Judah, `Lo, your God.'

¹⁰Lo, the Lord Jehovah with strength cometh, And His arm is ruling for Him, Lo, His hire [is] with Him, and His wage before Him.

¹¹As a shepherd His flock He feedeth, With His arm He gathereth lambs, And in His bosom He carrieth [them]: Suckling ones He leadeth.

¹²Who hath measured in the hollow of his hand the waters? And the heavens by a span hath meted out, And comprehended in a measure the dust of the earth, And hath weighed in scales the mountains, And the hills in a balance?

¹³Who hath meted out the Spirit of Jehovah, And, [being] His counsellor, doth teach Him!

¹⁴With whom consulted He, That he causeth Him to understand? And teacheth Him in the path of judgment, And teacheth Him knowledge? And the way of understanding causeth Him to know?

¹⁵Lo, nations as a drop from a bucket, And as small dust of the balance, have been reckoned, Lo, isles as a small thing He taketh up.

¹⁶And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, Nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt-offering.

¹⁷All the nations [are] as nothing before Him, Less than nothing and emptiness, They have been reckoned to Him.

¹⁸And unto whom do ye liken God, And what likeness do ye compare to Him?

¹⁹The graven image poured out hath a artizan, And a refiner with gold spreadeth it over, And chains of silver he is refining.

²⁰He who is poor [by] heave-offerings, A tree not rotten doth choose, A skilful artizan he seeketh for it, To establish a graven image -- not moved.

²¹Do ye not know -- do ye not hear? Hath it not been declared from the first to you? Have ye not understood [From] the foundations of the earth?

²²He who is sitting on the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants [are] as grasshoppers, He who is stretching out as a thin thing the heavens, And spreadeth them as a tent to dwell in.

²³He who is making princes become nothing, Judges of earth as emptiness hath made;

²⁴Yea, they have not been planted, Yea, they have not been sown, Yea, not taking root in the earth is their stock, And also He hath blown upon them, and they wither, And a whirlwind as stubble taketh them away.

²⁵And unto whom do ye liken Me, And [am] I equal? saith the Holy One.

²⁶Lift up on high your eyes, And see -- who hath prepared these? He who is bringing out by number their host, To all of them by name He calleth, By abundance of strength (And [he is] strong in power) not one is lacking.

²⁷Why sayest thou, O Jacob? and speakest thou, O Israel? `My way hath been hid from Jehovah, And from my God my judgment passeth over.'

²⁸Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard? The God of the age -- Jehovah, Preparer of the ends of the earth, Is not wearied nor fatigued, There is no searching of His understanding.

²⁹He is giving power to the weary, And to those not strong He increaseth might.

³⁰Even youths are wearied and fatigued, And young men utterly stumble,

³¹But those expecting Jehovah pass [to] power, They raise up the pinion as eagles, They run and are not fatigued, They go on and do not faint!

God bless you and I pray for all who read this - "Comfort ye, Comfort ye my people, saith the Lord". Now go, little grasshoppers and spread the Gospel of the Lord.

1Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people, saith your God.

¹Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people, saith your God.