p. 11 | The Care of God

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 17, 1908

The Care of God

“Do you see this lock of hair?” said an old man to me one day.

“Yes; it is, I suppose, a curl from the head of some loved child.”

“No; it is a lock of my own hair; and it is now nearly seventy years since it was cut from this head.”

“But why do you prize a lock of your own hair so much?”

“Because it has a strange history. I keep it thus with care because it speaks to me of God and of his special care. I was a little child four years old, with long curly locks, which, in sun, or rain, or wind, hung down my cheeks uncovered. One day my father went into the woods to cut up a log, and I went with him. I was standing a little way behind him, or rather at his side, watching with interest the strokes of the heavy ax as it came down upon the wood, sending off chips in all directions with every stroke. Some of them fell at my feet, and I eagerly stooped to pick them up. In doing so I stumbled forward, and in a moment my curly head lay upon the log. I had fallen just at the moment when the ax was coming down with all its force. It was too late to stop the blow. Down came the ax. I screamed, and my father fell to the ground in terror. He could not stay the stroke, and in the blindness which the sudden horror caused, he thought he had killed his boy. We soon recovered, I from my fright and he from his terror. He caught me up in his arms, and looked at me from head to foot to find the deadly wound which he was sure he had inflicted. Not a drop of blood, not a scar, was to be seen. He knelt upon the grass, and gave thanks to a gracious God. Having done so, he took up his ax, and found a few hairs upon its edge. He turned to the log he had been chopping, and there was a single curl of his boy’s hair, sharply cut through and laid upon the wood. How great was the escape! It was as if an angel had turned aside the edge at the moment it was descending on my head. With renewed thanks upon his lips he took up the curl, and went home with me in his arms.”

That lock he kept all his days as a memorial of God’s care and love. That lock he left to me on his death-bed. I keep it with care. It tells me of my father’s God and mine. It rebukes unbelief and alarm. It bids me trust him forever. It used to speak to my father’s heart; it now speaks to mine.”—Selected.