A lady said to her nephew, “How old are you?”
“Three,” he said.
“Well, when will you be four?”
He replied, “When I’m done being three!”
Little Nancy was in the garden filling in a hole when her neighbor peered over the fence. Interested in what the little girl was up to, he politely asked, “What are you up to there, Nancy?”
“My goldfish died,” replied Nancy tearfully, without looking up, “and I’ve just buried him.”
The neighbor was concerned. “That’s an awfully big hole for a goldfish, isn’t it?”
Nancy patted down the last heap of earth and then replied, “That’s because he’s inside your stupid cat.”
Alexander M. Sanders, Jr. (who was at one time the Chief Judge of the South
Carolina Court of Appeals) spoke to the graduating class of the University of
South Carolina in 1992. His daughter, Zoe, was a member of that class. He told
a story about when Zoe was 3 years old. Sanders came home to find a crisis. Zoe’s
pet turtle had died and she was crying her heart out. His wife turned the
problem over to him to solve.
A mother was away all weekend at a business conference. During a break, she decided to call home collect. Her six-year-old son picked up the phone and heard a stranger’s voice say, “We have a Marcia on the line. Will you accept the charges?” Frantic, he dropped the receiver and came charging outside screaming, “Dad! They’ve got Mom! And they want money!”
Oh, I sure am happy to see you,” the little boy said to his grandmother on his mother’s side. “Now maybe daddy will do the trick he has been promising us.”
The grandmother was curious. ”What trick is that?” she asked.
“I heard him tell mommy that he would climb the walls if you came to visit,” the little boy answered.
A pastor in California was giving an invitation at the end of his Sunday morning message when a five-year old boy, sensing the invitation of the Holy Spirit came down the aisle. Not knowing if the boy was old enough to understand salvation, the pastor took him to his office and began to ask some theological questions. The more he questioned, the more confused the boy became. Finally, in exasperation, the little fellow stopped and innocently pleaded, “Pastor Patterson, in your message this morning you said that if I would come and ask Jesus to save me—He would!
Three young fathers were in the waiting room. The first was told that his wife gave birth to twins. He was amazed and said, “I play ball for the Minnesota Twins.”
Later, the nurse came out and told the second man, “Congratulations, you are the father of triplets.” He said, “That is amazing! I work for 3M.”
The man next to him fainted. When he woke up they asked, “What’s wrong.” He said, “I work for 7Up.”
A school teacher was correcting papers, and as she looked at one little boy’s work, she was appalled with the results. She said, “I fail to understand how one person could make so many mistakes.”
The boy replied, “But it wasn’t just one person. My dad helped!”
Three boys in the schoolyard were bragging about who had the highest paid father:
The first boy said, “My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a poem, and they give him $100.”
The second boy said, “That’s nothing. My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a song, and they give him $1000.”
The third boy said, “My Dad is ever better than that. He scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, calls it a sermon, and it takes 6 or 8 men just to collect all the money!”
A mother was explaining, to her little girl, the death of her father. The mother said: “God has sent for your father and will send for us, but I do not know just when.” Finally, the little girl said: “If we do not know just when God is going to send for us, do you not think we had better pack up and get ready to go? God might send when we are not ready.”
During the French war, a train carrying dispatches to the headquarters was compelled to go over sixty miles of very rough track, and reach its destination within an hour. The engineer was the bearer of the dispatches, and his wife and child were in the coach. Every moment threatened to pitch the train over the embankment or over a bridge, and, as it rolled from side to side, leaping at times almost in the air, rushing past stations, the few people inside held their breath and often cried out with terror as they sped along.
The English poet, Alexander Pope, wrote, “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.” When new trees are planted stakes are often put into the ground beside the tree. The stakes are there for a purpose—to train the tree to grow straight and tall.
Those stakes work remarkably well if they are put in place when the tree is young. But If crooked growth has been allowed to develop for several years, they will not be effective. Rules for our children work the same way.
A Philadelphia congregation watched as three 9-year-old boys were baptized and joined the church. Not long after, unable to continue with its dwindling membership, the church sold the building and disbanded.
A little boy in church for the first time watched as the ushers passed around the offering plates. When they came near his pew, the boy said loudly, “Don’t pay for me, Daddy, I’m under five.”
Dr. Helen Roseveare, missionary to Zaire, told the following story. “A mother at our mission station died after giving birth to a premature baby. We tried to improvise an incubator to keep the infant alive, but the only hot water bottle we had was beyond repair. So we asked the children to pray for the baby and for her sister. One of the girls responded. ‘Dear God, please send a hot water bottle today. Tomorrow will be too late because by then the baby will be dead.
The Fourth of July weekend was approaching, and Miss Pelham, the nursery school teacher, took the opportunity to tell her class about patriotism. “We live in a great country,” she announced. “One of the things we should be happy about is that, in this country, we are all free.”
Trevor, who was a little boy in her class, came walking up to her from the back of the room. He stood with his hands on his hips and said loudly, “I'm not free. I'm four.”
A little 7-year-old boy named Alex was staring at a large plaque in the church foyer. The plaque was covered with names and small American flags. As Alex looked at it, his pastor walked up and said, “Good morning Alex.”
Alex said, “Pastor, what it this?”
“Well, it is a memorial to all the young men and women who died in the service.” Soberly, they stood together staring at the plaque.
In a tender voice Alex asked, “Which service, the 8:30 or the 11:00?”