Lucy and Her Little Sunbeam
Lucy sat, one afternoon, watching her sick mother. The room was very still and dark. The shutters were closed, and the curtains half-drawn; for sick people, you know, cannot bear the strong light.
The poor child was very tired and weary, and her little face, that was generally so bright, looked now as though it were in a long shadow. She had been reading aloud for more than an hour to her mother, until at last her head began to be quite tired, and her eyes very heavy. She was sitting in her low chair, by the bedside, and as she watched the long shadows on the floor, some sad thoughts came into her head. “How I wish that poor, dear mother was well again, as she used to be,” thought Lucy. “It seems so long since she was able to go out of doors, or even to sit by the window in the sunshine! I do wonder if it will always be just so! I’m sure it must be very tiresome here for her. And then—oh, dear! I am not half so good and patient as I ought to be; I get cross so often, and I’m afraid I am not a bit of a comfort to Mother, though I am her only little girl!”
And Lucy heaved a long sigh, and let her head fall wearily on the bedside. That dark room, with its four walls, seemed like a very gloomy world to her, and she forgot how many things there were to make her bright and happy. I don’t know what else Lucy might have thought, but, all of a sudden, her head started up, and with a very bright voice, she exclaimed: “Oh, Mother dear! Just see that beautiful streak of sunlight coming in through the blind. There! It has flown across the floor, and is trying to hide itself under your pillow!”
Her mother looked up with a sweet, quiet smile, and Lucy thought the sunbeam was looking out of her very eyes, as she answered: “Yes, Lucy, it is very beautiful. It does me good to look at it. You are out in the merry sunshine every day, and can hardly tell what a dear little messenger this stray sunbeam is to me, in this dark room! It makes me thank God, my child, for all His goodness to me. Do you know, Lucy, that you are my own little sunbeam? How could I do without you!”
“Oh, Mother!” and Lucy’s head sank lower than ever. “I wish I could be your sunbeam! I was thinking only just now, how dull it was for you here, and how I wished I could make it brighter and pleasanter for you! Don’t you get tired of me sometimes, Mother?”
“Lucy, my child, you are my dear little comfort—my own precious daughter—and I want to tell you how much you have helped to make me happy and cheerful all the time I have been sick. I thank God every day for having given you to me. And Lucy, when He takes me home to Himself, you must try to be a comfort to others, just as you have been to me. Ask God to keep a bright spot in your heart; to put the sunshine of His own smile there; and then, however dark and sad things may seem about you, you will be happy and useful, and perhaps a stray sunbeam may get into somebody else’s heart from yours!”
Neither Lucy nor her mother said any more just then; and Lucy looked towards the window where she had first seen the light shining in. “It was only one little bit of a ray,” thought she, “but it made the whole room look different. It seemed like a bright thought coming in all of a sudden, to keep me company. Well! I will try to be a sunbeam myself; I never thought of it before. I am sure I can be more like one, if I try. I am afraid I often wear a cloudy face instead of a sunny one. God must love the sunshine, for He made it; and the little Bible-verse I learned the other day, says, ‘God is light.’ (1 John 1:5) I will think of that when I begin to feel selfish and cross, and perhaps it will keep the sunshine in my heart.”
And so Lucy did try, day after day, at home and at school, to be like the sunbeam. Sometimes it was quite easy, and then again it was very hard; and there would be a fight between the clouds and the sun; and sometimes, I am afraid, the clouds did get the victory. But Lucy was in real earnest, and kept asking God to help her, and to put His light in her heart. And so, although she did not know it, she grew more and more like the sunbeam, and carried light with her wherever she went. She only knew that she felt very happy, and so she tried to make others happy too. She had such a bright smile, and such a cheerful voice, that people were really ashamed to be dull or gloomy when she was near.
One day, not very long after the time when Lucy saw the little sunbeam come in at the window, she stood in her mother’s room, by the same bedside, but her face was very pale and sorrowful. She knew that her dear mother had left her, and as she looked for the last time on her sweet face, so peaceful and still, she thought how God had taken her mother to be with Him in the land of glory. And Lucy knelt down, and prayed that God would make her fit for heaven, so that she too might be glad when the angel of death came to take her home. When she rose from her knees, the sunlight was streaming softly in at the western window, and Lucy’s heart was light and happy, for she remembered how Jesus is called the “Sun of Righteousness,” and she felt sure that He would shine into her lonely little heart, and fill it with His love!
