Ode to Jimmy
You came for a visit before Christmas, We had to leave you behind, We did not know what we would come back to find, For six weeks we traveled around, You did not hear a sound, You took such good care of our home, You left all our food alone, You slept in our little boys bed, And starved because you were not fed, We came home with peanut butter for you, set on traps meant for you to chew, You evaded capture for days, as you stumbled in a peanut butter haze, Now that you were well fed, You became confident in your head, One night as we relaxed on the couch, We heard your biggest ouch! We did not want to see your pain, So in the living room we remain, Until it was completely done, We knew that we had won, But sadly we discarded you in the snow, And now we most certainly know, that you were the most intelligent mouse, that ever lived in our house. (Jimmy was named in honor of our most amazing exterminator friend, Jimmy Kerns)
Neither the Bible nor the child of God knows anything of that half-infidel declaration that we are to answer our own prayers. God answers prayers.
I once heard an eminent and saintly preacher, now in heaven, speak abruptly and sharply to a congregation that had just risen from prayer, with the question and statement, “What did you pray for? If God should take hold of you and shake you, and demand what you prayed for, you could not tell Him to save your life what the prayer was that just died from your lips.” So it always is, that prayerless praying has neither memory or heart.
Luther said, “To have prayed well is to have studied well.” More than that, to have prayed well is to have fought well; to have prayed well is to have lived well; to pray well is to die well.
Wife, Mother, Campus Missionary
