“Mother!”

“God, you help children who have no father.” — from Psalm 10

In 1846 Samuel went to live in Abeokuta, a new city in the Yoruba country. He was there to start a church and a school. It was the first time he had lived among his own people since he was a boy.

He had been there less than three weeks when someone brought amazing news. His mother was alive! She was living with his sisters in a town nearby. Samuel sent for her straight away.

On 21 August 1846, his mother came. That morning Samuel had read a Bible verse: “You are the helper of the fatherless.” He said he had never felt how true it was so much as on that day.

When his mother saw him, she trembled. She could not believe her eyes. They held on to each other and looked at each other in silence, while big tears rolled down her thin cheeks. She called him by the pet names his grandmother used to call him when he was little. It had been twenty-five years since they were torn apart.

Samuel’s mother had had a very hard life. She had been a slave for many of those years. Now she came to live with her son. She went to church, and she learned about Jesus. In 1848 she was baptised, and she took the name Hannah. When Samuel told her his work would often take him far away, she said, “You are no longer my son, but the servant of God.” She wanted him to go and serve God without worrying about her.

God did not forget Samuel, and he did not forget Samuel’s mother. He does not forget you, either.

Dear God, thank you for my family. Thank you that you never forget me, and that you help people who are lonely or have lost someone they love. Amen.