Every night, the young mother rocked her young 3 year old daughter to sleep and each night the same conversation took place between mother and daughter.
The young mother would first tell a story, then say a prayer for her daughter, and finally hum a lulaby.
The daughter would then respond by touching her mother’s soft hair and saying, “Mommy, your hair is so pretty. I love your hair.”
She would stroke her mother’s cheek and say, “Mommy, your face is so pretty. I love your face”
Finally, the little girl would point at her mother’s arms and say, “But Mommy, your arms are ugly. I don’t love your arms.”
This bedtime ritual went on night after night. Then one evening, after the little girl had once again told her mother that she did not love her arms, the mother decided it was time to tell her daughter the story of her scarred arms.
The mother gently explained, “When you were a baby, there was a fire in the nursery. You were trapped in your crib and would have surely burned to death. But I heard you crying, ran into the room, and had to reach through the flames in order to save you from the fire. The fire burned mommy’s arms very badly and that is why my arms are so ugly.”
The child thoughtfully nodded. A couple minutes passed. The mother assumed that her daughter was probably too young to understand.
Then the little girl began her nightly ritual and began by touching her mother’s soft hair.
“Mommy, your hair is so pretty. I love your hair.”
As usual, she stroked her mother’s cheek and said, “Mommy, your face is so pretty. I love your face”
Then, for the first time in the little girl’s life, she reached down and began to gently caress her mother’s arms and said, “Mommy, your arms are prettiest of all. I really love your arms.”
Jesus is just like that mother with disfigured arms.
He has reached through the fires of hell to rescue you from the crib of death.
His scarred arms are beautiful because they reveal how much he loves you and what it cost him to save you from the flames.
MORE IDEAS? See “Creative Object Lessons”
200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.