Our Father’s Arms

As a young boy, J. Ellsworth Kalas had to visit the Mayo Clinic for tests. His parents, knowing their son was safe in the hospital overnight, slept at a nearby hotel. But Kalas was so lonely and scared that a nurse called his folks. Kalas, who later became a pastor, recalled what it was like to have his father arrive.

“I remember his dressing me there in the darkness,” he said. “Then I remember getting on a streetcar, sitting way at the back as we rode to the hotel. He held me very close to him, his long, ungainly arm wrapped around me. And the little boy who had been so frightened was now at peace.”

We all face trials that can seem overwhelming. “How good, then, to draw deeply on the resources of God!” Kalas said. “In him there is a peace which is greater than the trouble. How good, indeed, to burrow into a place of security, and to feel an arm wrapping strong about us and to know that it is the arm of our heavenly Father.”