A matter of life and death

Almost nine million abortions: 550 every day; 3,800 every week; 16,000 every month; 200,000 every year. Every one is a human life.

Peter Saunders, chief executive of the Christian Medical Fellowship, writing in Trtiple Helix,  the CMF magazine on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Abortion Act,  says there are 100,000 people alive in Northern Ireland today because they don't have a law that allows abortion like we do in the British mainland.

Apparently these figures are not sufficient. The We Trust Women campaign, driven by abortion providers BPAS and approved by the Royal College of Midwives, the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, wants to decriminalise abortion completely, so that women can have an abortion at any time, for any reason.

No one, says Dr Saunders, would contemplate dismembering a newborn baby and throwing its body parts into a bucket. Yet because the baby is still in the womb, abortion is considered acceptable. Is tthis not discrimination nased on age, size or neurological capacity, just like racism or sexism? It is not, he says, too late to do something about it.

Think about it.

'They taught that they weren't alive'

Stojan Adasevic was an abortionist in Serbia. He worked five days a week, and did 20, 30 or 35 abortions a day. He performed 48,000 abortions, although some say the total was closer to 60,000.

After a time, he started having a recurring dream. In the dream, children and young people were playing in a beautiful field. They ran away from him in fear. A man stared at him in silence.

One night the man spoke. "Why don't you ask me who the children are?" he said. "These are the ones you killed with your abortions." Adasevic would wake up in a cold sweat.

Then one day he was aborting a baby three or four months old. It was the woman's ninth abortion. As he started the procedure, the amniotic fluid flowed out.

He went in with his abortion forceps and pulled out a hand, which he placed on the table. The hand fell on some iodine which someone had spilled. As the nerve endings touched the iodine, the hand began to move.

"It's moving by itself," he thought.

He went in again and pulled out something else. Let it not be a leg, he told himself. It was a leg. He went to put the leg carefully on the table, but there was a bang behind him, and he dropped it. It fell next to the hand, and the leg too began to move by itself.

He went in again, and began to crush everything inside the uterus. When he took out the forceps, they were holding a beating heart. He watched as the heart continued to beat, slower and slower, until it stopped.

He decided he would never do an abortion again. When he told the hospital, they cut his salary by half, fired his daughter from her job, and did not allow his son to enter university.

"They taught that life began with the first cry," he says. "When a baby cries for the first time. That up to that moment, a human being is like any other organ in a woman's body, like an appendix.

"That's why, immediately after birth, children were taken and their heads submerged in a bucket of water. A child would take in water instead of air, and never cry. Terrible, but that's how things were."

Stojan Adasevic is now a pro-life advocate. You can see more details of his story here.
       

Government to vote on genetically modified babies

The Government is trying to legalise the creation of genetically modified babies. To prevent mitochondrial disease, it proposes creating modified embryos from a minimum of three parents, which would then be implanted by IVF. The proposal is expected to be voted on in the House of Commons this Tuesday, February 3.

Genetic modifications are expected to be passed on not only to the child, but to all future descendants. There is no way of knowing what the long-term effects might be.

The procedure will necessarily involve the destruction of living human embryos.

The procedure is currently prohibited by international law. We would be the first nation in the world to permit it.

The Department of Health is claiming widespread approval for the proposal, despite its own consultation having shown a majority of the public opposed to the idea.

It is not too late to send an e-mail to your MP, asking him or her to vote against the measure.

Ypu can see further details here or here.
       

A new job for grandmother, 95

Mrs Connie Vitolo, who is 95, lived in New Jersey in the United States. Until she had a nasty fall, and moved to live with her daughter Anne in Virginia.

Having lost her own home, depression set in. One day she prayed to die.

Anne knew this wasn't right, and prayed that God would give her mother a purpose for living.

He did. Mrs Vitolo began to crochet blankets for an orphanage in India. "She really has a lot of Joy just doing this," says Anne. "She can do it all day and she doesn't get tired."

Before starting a blanket, Mrs Vitolo prays. Having started a blanket, she prays "Jesus, don't let me die before I finish my blanket."

Ranjit Abraham lives in India. His father, a pastor, founded 17 orphanages. On a trip to the US, Ranjit visited Mrs Vitolo to say thank you. He gave her a big hug, and she showed him a pile of multicoloured blankets ready to go. 

"What that lady is doing is amazing," said Ranjit. "It's something that is giving her life and is breathing in life and nurture to a child in another country."

"Jesus has a purpose for us all," said Mrs Vitolo. "But I never thought He had a purpose like this for me. I'm very happy, and honoured and humble. Jesus, I love You. I thank You and praise You all my days. Until the day I come home."
        

'15 minutes of pure love'

Phil and Bonnie Walker had four children. After Bonnie became pregnant for a fifth time, she went to hospital for a routine scan.

"The doctor said there was a problem with the pregnancy," said Bonnie. "It wasn't a viable pregnancy and she could offer a termination within the week. It was that blunt."

Baby Grace had anencephaly. If she was born, her life would be short.

"I just cried," said Phil. But they were adamant the baby should be born. "We saw it as a gift from God. That wasn't for us to take away."

When Grace was born, they showed her to the family. All the family held her. "We had no idea how long she was going to survive, but she was alive."

Grace lived for 15 minutes. Said Phil: "It was 15 minutes of pure love."

"There was such a peace. I can't describe it," said Bonnie. "We got to see her face. She was so beautiful. Why would anyone want to take that away?

"There's a reason for every life, no matter how short."

You can see Phil and Bonnie tell their story on video here.
   

Life and death: A time to remember

Anka Bergman married her husband Bernd in her native Czechoslovakia in 1940.

In 1941 they were both sent to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt. The sexes were segregated, but they managed to meet, and Anka fell pregnant. When her pregnancy was discovered, she was forced to sign a paper agreeing to hand over the baby to the Gestapo when it was born so the baby could be killed.

She gave birth to a son, George. Surprisingly, he wasn't handed over, but died of pneumonia when he was two months old.

Bernd was sent to Auschwitz in 1944. By this time, Anka was pregnant again. She volunteered to go to Auschwitz the day after her husband was moved. She never saw him again. He was shot dead in Auschwitz a week before the camp was liberated by the Red Army.

On her arrival in Auschwitz, her pregnancy was not discovered and she was selected to live by Josef Mengele. Her son George's death saved her life. If she had had her baby, she would have gone straight to the gas chambers.

After 10 days of "hell on earth," she was transported to work in a munitions factory in Germany. After her pregnancy became obvious, she was transported with others for three weeks without food in an open coal truck to the death camp at Mauthausen. When she saw the name, she went into labour.

Anka gave birth to her daughter Eva in a cart filled with people suffering from typhoid. She weighed five stones; her baby weighed about three pounds. Her baby was wrapped in newspaper to try to keep her warm.

She survived for two reasons: the Germans had stopped gassing people and blown up the gas chamber the previous day, and the camp was liberated by the American Army a week later. Strangely, Anka had always believed she would survive the Holocaust.

When she returned to Prague, 15 members of her family had perished. She was taken in by a surviving cousin. After the war, Anka came to Britain with her daughter.

She died last July, aged 96, leaving a daughter, grandchildren and great grandchildren. 

● Yesterday/today (Monday evening to Tuesday evening) is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Music saved her life

Alice Herz-Sommer, who lives in London, is the oldest living Holocaust survivor. She is also said to be the world's oldest living pianist.

Born in Prague with a remarkable musical gift, she became a concert pianist. After the Germans invaded, she was sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp, a "show camp" of artists, writers and musicians.

She gave more than a hundred concerts for the starving inmates. They had only a little black coffee and a little watery soup, but music kept them alive. "This was their food," she says.

She survived the war, and moved to London some 25 years ago. She is 109.

I wrote a blog post about her almost two years ago. Now someone has contacted me to tell me of the release of a full-length film, The Lady in Number Six, telling the story of her life.

You can see extracts from the film here.

Dying can be a great opportunity

What's the worth of a human life? If it's my life, can I do what I want with it? Do I have the right to end it when I feel like it?

Listen to John Wyatt, emeritus professor of ethics and perinatology at University College, London, writing in the current issue of Catalyst, published by CARE:

Many insist that we are like chimpanzees with extra brain, just one more species on the planet. Others believe we are basically machines, with brains like computers made of flesh instead of silicon and wires.

Another common attitude is narcissism or the elevation of the self, which is a form of idolatry. 'Everything that improves my life is great. Anything that diminishes it is negative. I have the right to choose how to live my life and also when it should end.' This mindset sees suffering as something to avoid, dismissing the idea that it could ever be of positive value. We see young people caught up in addictions that deaden the pain in and around them.

In secular thinking, human beings can be 'categorised' according to their value with high achievers and celebrities at the top all the way down to those who are totally unproductive and burdensome. Just think where this leads. 'Provided I am independent and able to choose, life is worth living but once I become frail, vulnerable, limited, I become less valuable - putting me out of my misery might be doing me a favour.'

Genesis 1 is clear that every human life is made in God's image. Psalm 139 describes us as 'knit together in our mother's womb. . . fearfully and wonderfully made.' Ephesians 2:10 says 'we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.' Jesus became human like us, choosing to be vulnerable, experiencing human fragility.

God chooses for us to live in a web of dependency on Him and others. We did not choose the circumstances of our birth and arrived completely helpless. As we grow, others may rely on us, and later we might need looking after again. In love, God calls us into existence by name; His plan for us reaches beyond the grave. For someone with dementia, this is crucial. They may forget who they are, but God knows, and remembers, holding their identity safe.

Christians should be particularly concerned about protecting the most vulnerable!  The brain-damaged, the disabled baby, someone severely harmed by life's circumstances, a frail older person - are they not made in God's image - all equal, special beings?. . . 

Palliative care is about living, helping to maximise someone's final days positively. I know of many who have 'died well' - finding time to restore relationships, say goodbye and let go as they focused on meeting God, many receiving Christ as saviour. Vulnerably ill people sometimes express suicidal thoughts but skilled and compassionate caring support transforms the situation. Dying can, by God's grace, be a great adventure and an opportunity, right up to the end, for a person to find purpose in their life.

Getting it right

When man gets to his lowest ebb, God sometimes shows him a vision of Himself, seated on a throne. Just to remind him that He exists, and He is still in charge.

Isaiah saw it (Isa 6:1); Ezekiel saw it (Eze 1:26); Daniel saw it (Dan 9:7); the apostle John saw it (Rev 4:2).

 Men who have no time for God would like to tear Him from His throne:

The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
"Let us break their bonds in pieces
And cast away their cords from us."
He who sits in the heavens shall laugh, 
The Lord shall hold them in derision.
Then he shall speak to them in his wrath,
And distress them in his deep displeasure.  Psa 2:2 - 5.

Such men sanctify that which God hates, and legalise that which He says is an abomination.

But they won't succeed:

Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever;
A sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of your Kingdom.  Heb 1:8.

He created all things, "and by your will they exist and were created."  Rev 4:11.

He is worthy to be worshipped.

Edmund Clowney says: "God is the centre of all things. We worship so that we live in response to and from this centre, the living God. Failure to worship consigns us to a life of spasms and jerks, at the mercy of every advertisement, every seduction. If there is no centre there is no circumference. People who do not worship are swept into a vast restlessness. . . with no steady direction and no sustaining purpose."

The man whose life is right is the man who worships God.

The story of Jonathan and Dora

Jonathan and Dora McLeod met in 2003 and fell in love. But things didn't go the way they were supposed to. . . 

Jonathan suffered from anger. It expressed itself not only in fighting in the ring, but in bare-knuckle fighting. He developed a severe addiction to painkillers. One day he decided he couldn't take it any more and attempted suicide.

After a week or two in hospital, he was placed in a mental institution. When he was released from there, he still suffered from depression.

Watch as Jonathan and Dora tell the story of what happened to them on video. You can see the video here.

'Waiting for Jesus'

Frances Ridley Havergal was born in Worcestershire in 1836. She was the youngest of six children of an evangelical Anglican clergyman, himself the author of about a hundred hymns.

Frances could read at three years old, and wrote her first poetry at seven. From six years old, she longed to find forgiveness in Christ, but it was only at 14 that she found peace in Him. "I committed my soul to the Saviour," she said, "and earth and heaven seemed brighter from that moment."

Although not able to go to school for long periods, she was proficient in several modern languages, as well as Latin, Hebrew and Greek. She was a sweet singer and a gifted pianist, playing Handel, Mendelssohn and Beethoven, often from memory.

By the time she was 22, she had learned the Psalms, the book of Isaiah and almost all the New Testament off by heart. She went on to memorise the Minor Prophets. (Do they make Christians like that any more?)

Whilst in Germany, she saw a picture of Christ during His passion, bearing the inscription "I did this for thee; what hast thou done for Me?" It appears to have made a considerable impression.

Despite long periods of illness, Frances wrote books, articles, poetry, a considerable number of hymns - some of them well known - and a number of hymn tunes.

She died of peritonitis at 42 years old.

At the beginning of her last illness, she asked her doctor "Do you think I have a chance of going? If I am going, it is too good to be true!"

Towards the end of that last illness, although in agonising pain, "It is all perfect peace," she said. "I am only waiting for Jesus to take me in."

Clearly, though faintly, she sang the whole verse of one of her hymns. She looked up steadfastly, her face radiant, as though she saw the Lord. For 10 minutes, said her sister, the family watched her almost visible meeting with her King.

She tried to sing again, but after one sweet high note, her voice failed and she was gone.

Her favourite bit of Scripture, "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin," was inscribed on her coffin and on her gravestone.

May I be allowed to ask you a question? It's the same question she was faced with. He died for you. What have you done for Him?

Fried chicken, anyone?

Col Harland David Sanders opened a service station and started to serve ham and steaks cooked in his home nearby. (This is the man with the glasses and goatee beard. Kentucky Fried Chicken. That Col Sanders.)

The first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise opened in 1952. The company grew until the colonel was unable to manage its growth. He sold it for £1.5 million in 1964.

Now his face appears in 17,000 towns and cities in 105 countries. The company sells 114 million hot wings each year in Britain alone.

One night an American preacher knelt beside the colonel and asked: "Would you like to get born again?" "I really would," said the colonel. "Do you think that Jesus could save me to the point where He would take away my cussing?" "God is going to save you tonight," said the preacher, "and you'll never cuss again."

Col Sanders accepted Christ that night and never again took the Lord's name in vain. He was baptised in the River Jordan.

According to a biography written by Bob Rodgers, the preacher's son, the colonel was once needing surgery for a growth in the colon. The same preacher went to the hospital and prayed for him. When the surgeon operated, there was no growth there.

"God has been so good to me," said Col Sanders.

He died in 1980, aged 90.

Questions that demand answers

The oldest man in Britain died in Wirksworth, Derbyshire, last week. He was 110 years old.

Rev Reg Dean was born in Tunstall, Staffordshire, in 1902. He was ordained to the Church of England ministry as a young man, and was a Church of England minister and later a minister in the United Reformed Church until he was 80. At 80 he took up painting, and in his mid-eighties founded an award-winning male voice choir.

He had been married three times.

In World War II he was an Army chaplain in Burma. He told his son that at one point he was surrounded by Japanese. They taunted him, shouting "Johnny, we will come and kill you tomorrow." He spent the evening in prayer. The following morning, all the Japanese had disappeared.

In 2011, speaking (at his 109th birthday party?) to an audience of elderly people, he told them: "There are three questions you must learn to try to answer. One is 'Who am I?' Two is 'Why am I here?' And three is 'Where am I going?'

Spot on. Those are questions that plague all of us at one time or another. Those questions do have answers. It's so important before you go right through life and tumble into eternity that you're sure you've found them.

'I lost everything, but God sent His angels'

Leslie Haskin was one of 15 children. Her father was a Baptist minister, her mother a choir director. Despite being brought up in a godly home, she decided when she moved to New York to work that she wanted nothing to do with God.

She was an insurance company executive, nicknamed "the Ice Princess" because of her attitude to her underlings.

At 8.46 am on September 11, 2001, she was in her company's offices on the 37th floor of the World Trade Centre when an airplane hit the building.

Through the window she saw bodies falling as people threw themselves from windows to escape the flames. Ceilings were collapsing and you could see flames through the seams. Someone shouted "The building is coming down! The building is coming down!"

Elevators were not able to be used. Leslie joined others on the stairs. The stairway was narrow and progress was slow. The force of a second airplane hitting an adjoining building jammed the door below her so it couldn't be opened.  She was trapped near the ninth floor, and sure she was going to die.

She closed her eyes and said "God help us." She suddenly remembered a hymn her mother used to sing to her to waken her in a morning. "Pass me not, O gentle Saviour, Hear my humble cry; While on others Thou art calling, Do not pass me by."

After 10 minutes, the door opened and Leslie reached the street. She saw the body of a man who had been decapitated. Bodies of those who had leaped from windows lay around. The body of a man exploded near her and splattered her with blood.

She couldn't speak properly. Doctors found she had had a nervous breakdown. She was in a psychiatric hospital for several weeks, then under continuing care by doctors and therapists, still heavily medicated. She boarded up the windows of her home because she believed the Taliban were in her shed and wanted to kill her. Doctors said she would never work again.

One day her 12-year-old son came into her room and jumped up on the bed. "Mom, are you ready?" he said. "Ready for what?" "To receive Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour. The Bible says if you are lukewarm in your faith God will spit you right out of His mouth."

She prayed with her son to accept Christ.

Slowly she improved as she stopped taking the medication. Doctors were amazed when she started to fly on planes again.

Leslie has written several books, appeared on television and become the subject of a film. Now she travels the world telling people Jesus Christ is the answer.

"I lost everything," she says, "but God sent His angels to help me."

You can read the full story here.

Would you like to be rich?

You may have heard the story.

As a youngster, George had attended Sunday school, where he found Christ. He lived in a small cottage and hadn't much of this world's goods, but always he had a smile and a kind word for everyone. "What a beautiful day," he'd say. "How good God is." Or "Look at this rain, making everything grow. Isn't God good?"

George worked as a gardener on a large estate.

One day the owner of the estate was walking around his gardens when he thought he heard a voice. He stopped and listened. There it was again. "The richest man in the land," it said, "will die at five o'clock tomorrow." He listened carefully. It came again. "The richest man in the land will die at five o'clock tomorrow." He looked all around him. He searched the places nearby. There was no one there.

Where did the voice come from? Who was the richest man in the land? He thought about his properties, his companies, his bank accounts. Surely he was the man. But he didn't want to die. He wasn't ready to die.

He didn't sleep that night. The following day the minutes seemed to go by too slowly and too quickly, both at once. As five o'clock approached, he was sitting in his library with his head in his hands. He heard the clock whirring as it prepared to strike. It struck. One. . . two. . . three. . . four. . . five. The sound died away. A minute passed. Three minutes. Five minutes. He was still alive!

A feeling of relief flooded over him. He ordered a big meal. That night, he had an early night and slept like a log. When he woke up, the sun was shining and the air was fresh and clean. He went for a walk in his gardens. It was good to be alive.

As he returned, a thought occurred to him. He stopped a man working near the house. "Where's  George?" he said. "I haven't seen George this morning." The man's mouth fell open. "Why sir, haven't you heard?" he said. "He's dead.

"He died last night. About five o'clock."

The story of Miriam Rosenthal

Miriam Schwarcz was born in 1922 in Komarno, Czechoslovakia, the 13th child of a gentleman farmer. She was spoiled.

As she grew up, she was always asking when she would be married. One day she and her mother met with a Jewish matchmaker. In her collection of photographs, Miriam spotted a handsome young man named Bela Rosenthal. They were married in 1944.

They were together only a short time before Bela was sent to a slave labour camp and Miriam to Auschwitz.

One day in Auschwitz an SS officer told the pregnant women to step forward, as their food rations were being doubled. Miriam, who was four months pregnant, didn't move. "Miriam, what are you doing?" her cousin asked. But Miriam stood where she was.

Two hundred women stepped forward, including some who weren't pregnant. All 200 went to the gas chambers.

Miriam was moved to a satellite camp at Dachau, and wound up in a cellar with six other pregnant women. Miriam was the last of the seven to give birth.

Babies were regarded as useless mouths to feed and were normally murdered at birth. Somehow these survived. American soldiers who liberated the camp wept when they saw the babies in a graveyard of bones.

Miriam returned to Komarno - and found Bela. He too had survived.

"I could see him coming, running from afar, and I shouted 'Bela, Bela.' I wasn't sure it was him," says Miriam. "He was running and calling my name. I can't describe that feeling when he saw our baby, when he saw Leslie for the first time. We cried and cried and cried."

In 1947, the three moved to Canada. Bela became a rabbi. He died aged 97.

Miriam still has Leslie, her "miracle baby." He's 67 now. He visits his mother every day. He knows something of what his mother auffered.

Miriam has just celebrated her 90th birthday.

Misery - or life worth living?

Surely there could have been no other decision in the Nicklinson case in the High Court this week than the one that was handed down.

Tony Nicklinson, a 58-year-old from Wiltshire, has locked-in syndrome after a severe stroke. His mind is in perfect working order, but he can move only his head and his eyes. He is fed through a tube, and communicates through a computer which reads head and eye movements.

He says his life is "dull, miserable, demeaning, undignified and intolerable." He wants permission for a doctor to end his life.

Some have said that his case is a perfect example of the need for a change in the law on assisted suicide - but assisted suicide is not the question here. Mr Nicklinson is unable to commit suicide, even with help. Granting permission for his death would have the effect of legalising euthanasia. As the law stands, the one ending his life would technically be open to a charge of murder.

While expressing sympathy for him in his condition, Lord Justice Toulson said in the High Court: "To do as Tony wants, the court would be making a major change in the law. It is not for the court to decide whether the law about assisted dying should be changed and, if so, what safeguards should be put in place. Under our system of government these are matters for Parliament to decide."

Mr Nicklinson intends to appeal.

Commenting on  the case, bioethicist Michael Cook points out that the majority of people with locked-in syndrome want to live. He recalled Frenchwoman Maryannick Pavageau, who had locked-in syndrome and was awarded the Legion d'Honneur for her battle against euthanasia.

She denied her life was miserable.

"All life is worth living," she said. "It can be beautiful, regardless of the state we are in. And change is always possible. That is the message of hope that I wish to convey. I am firmly against euthanasia because it is not physical suffering that guides the desire to die but a moment of discouragement, feeling like a burden. . . All those who ask to die are mostly looking for love."

About Sabden treacle mines

About 25 miles from my home is Pendle Hill, a great expanse of moorland perhaps best known for its association with the Pendle witches, who roamed that area in the 17th century and had their natural lives ended at the end of a rope after a trial at Lancaster Assizes.

A cannon ball fired from the slopes of Pendle Hill by Oliver Cromwell's army is said to have made the great hole you can still see in the wall of the keep of Clitheroe Castle. That's total fantasy: no cannon ball fired from that distance could possibly have made that amount of damage.

Pendle Hill does have happier associations. George Fox, founder of the Quaker movement, had a vision of  "a great people to be gathered" while on Pendle Hill.

In the shadow of the Big End of Pendle lies Downham, once said to be the prettiest village in Lancashire. At the other end, a road goes over the Nick of Pendle to Sabden in the valley on the other side. Beyond Sabden is Black Hill.

Sabden is known for its treacle mines. The treacle mines are probably Sabden's (pop. 1,371) best-known attribute.

One day recently, in a moment of idle curiosity, I typed "Sabden treacle mines" into the Google monster. It came up with a variety of websites, but I still have no authentic information about the mines' origin.

One day perhaps, if I live long enough, I will hear about how they began. When I do, I will squirrel the information away with the rest of the fairly useless information that makes life so interesting.

The case of the flying cat

I came across an interesting story the other day. It's supposed to be true: it gave the name of the man whose church it was and all.

A Christian minister had a kitten at home. The kitten climbed a tree in the garden and was too scared to come down. All attempts to tempt it down failed. Then the minister had a brainwave.

The tree was too slender to climb, but if he tied one end of a rope to the tree and the other end to his car and moved his car, it might bend the tree sufficiently for him to reach up and grab the cat.

He moved the car little by little, getting out each time to see how he was doing. Just a little more, he thought, and we've done it.

As he moved the car for the last time, the rope broke, the tree snapped back into position and the kitten sailed through the air and disappeared.

The minister searched the area and asked if anyone had seen the kitten, without success. Eventually, he committed the cat into God's care and went back to work.

A few days later, he met a woman church member in the supermarket. He saw cat food in her trolley, and he knew she hated cats. "Why are you buying cat food?" he said.

Her young daughter had been begging for a cat, and she had refused her. Her daughter persisted. Finally, she said "Well, if God gives you a cat, I'll let you keep it."

She watched the child go out into the yard, get on her knees, and ask God for a cat.

"Pastor, you won't believe this, but I saw it with my own eyes. A kitten suddenly came flying out of the sky, paws outspread, and landed right in front of her."

There was a comment at the end of the story: Never underestimate God's sense of humour.

I felt I could have thought of a better comment.

Never underestimate the prayers of a child.