A story on the theme of 1 Samuel 17.26-45

Topic/Title: “Know yourself that you may know God”

Theme: Of all the voices around you, telling you what you can and can’t do, God’s is the most important for you to listen to.

Change the names and genders and parental configurations as works best for your context.

 Alyssa had a nightlight in her room, but she was afraid of the dark. She lived alone with her mom. One pretty dark night, right after they had come home from shopping, she went to her room, turned on the lights, and picked up a book to read. While she was reading, she heard a crash in the other room like something had broken and then a loud thud. She ran into the kitchen and found her mom on the floor.

It looked like her mom had dropped a jar of lemonade and then had slipped on the spilled lemonade and bumped her head on the counter and knocked herself out. “What should I do?” thought Alyssa. She thought about trying to find her mom’s cell phone, but thought that might be too hard. Then she thought that she should run next door to their neighbors and tell her what happened.

But it was very, very dark outside. Their porch light had burned out and they hadn’t had a new bulb. There were no street lights in their neighborhood. Their neighbors had one light on in their house, but it was dark between her house and theirs. And Alyssa was afraid of the dark!

She thought about her friends making fun of her for being afraid of the dark. About her mom saying when her mom was small she was really afraid of the dark and didn’t get over it until she was grown up. She thought of all the scary cartoons she had seen about people getting hurt in the dark. How could she go next door?

Then she remembered part of a Bible verse that she had heard in Sunday School. It said that God would be with her when she was in the dark and she didn’t need to be afraid. Well, if God knew she didn’t have to be afraid, maybe she could trust him and not be afraid.

She knew she had to act fast. She poked her head out the door. Looked around. Nothing out there to be afraid of. Nothing between her and her neighbors. She ran for it like something scary was chasing her. But she got to her neighbors door....and nothing scary had happened to her -- nothing at all. And she wasn’t afraid. She knocked and they came. She told them what happened. They called the ambulance and went over to see how her mom was doing.

After it was all over, she agreed that if God knew she didn’t have to be afraid of the dark, she probably didn’t have to be afraid.