Daily Lesson for April 25, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Psalm 118 verses 22 and 23:
 

"22 The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone.

23 This is the Lord's doing;

it is marvelous in our eyes."

In her book The Whisper Test, Mary Ann Bird tells of the day that changed her life. Mary Ann was born with multiple birth defects: deaf in one ear, a cleft palate, a disfigured face, a crooked nose, lopsided feet. As a child, Mary Ann suffered not only from these physical deformities but also from the emotional damage other children inflicted upon her with their cruel insults. “Oh, Mary Ann,” her classmates would say, “what happened to your lip?”

“I cut it on a piece of glass,” she would lie.

One of the most dreaded experiences at school for Mary Ann was the annual hearing test. The teacher would call each child to her desk, and the child would cover their ears one at a time. The teacher then whispered something to the child like “The sky is blue” or “You have new shoes.” Thus, "the whisper test”; if what the teacher said was heard and repeated by the child, the child passed. In order to avoid the humiliation of failure, Mary Ann figured out a way to cheat on the test, cupping her hand over her one good ear so that she was able to make out what the teacher said.

One year Mary Ann was in the class of Miss Leonard, one of the most beloved and popular teachers in the school. All the students, including Mary Ann, wanted to be noticed by Ms. Leonard. That year, on the day of the dreaded hearing test, Mary Ann took her turn at Ms. Leonard's desk. Mary Ann cupped her hand over her good ear and waited for Ms. Leonard's whisper. “I waited for those words,” Mary Ann wrote, “that God must have put into her mouth, those seven words that changed my life.” Ms. Leonard did not say to Mary Ann, “The sky is blue” or “You have new shoes.” What she whispered was, “I wish you were my little girl.”

Psalm 118 says, "The stone the builders rejected had become the cornerstone." It's the Bible's way of saying that the Mary Ann Birds of this world, rejected and ridiculed, have been chosen by God's little girls.

And it is marvelous in our eyes - and ears!