I Sure Do Love You
StoryIllustration★★★★Down in a little town in Southern Iowa there lived a grandmother, in fact a great grandmother past 80 years of age. Her children, grand children and great grand children all got together and decided to give her a surprise on Christmas Day. So they came from all over the state and hid in the warm barn until they were all there. And when the family brought her in they shouted SURPRISE!
What a glorious day they had talking laughing singing rejoicing with mother and grandmother. It was a happy day for the both of them. As the sun began to sink below the horizon the children had to leave for their own homes. One after another they came into a room and kissed her good-bye.
The last to come was the eldest son. He was 67 years of age, a grandfather himself. As he entered the doorway he saw her over there near the window sitting in her rocking chair. The light from the sun was illuminating her tired old face, her happy face.
Her hands were folded there in her lap, those gnarled hands; those that had been so kind and tender to him; those that had brushed away so many tears from his eyes., had washed so many clothes and worked so long and so hard that he could have an education. And he saw her wrinkled face, that loving face that had bent over him so many sleepless nights, he went over and knelt down by her side and put his head in her lap just as he used to when he was a little boy.
Tenderly she patted him and tears came to his eyes. She ran her fingers through his thinning grey hair. He raised his head and looking into her face he said, “Mother I sure do love you.” She took his face between his hands and kissed him on the lips and said, “Son I’ve waited 67 years for you to tell me that.”
Dear friends, has God waited for you to tell Him something. I wonder If He’s waited for you to tell Him, “I love you God, I sure do love Heavenly Father.” Friends if you love him, give your heart to him. Come to Him.
Make a clean sweep of it tonight. As we close here tonight I wonder how many there are who would like to give their hearts to him in complete surrender. By coming forward and saying by that, “Lord I sure do love you.”
The point
An elderly great-grandmother receives a joyful Christmas surprise from her extended family. Her eldest son, at 67, expresses words of love he'd carried for decades, completing a lifelong wish she'd waited 67 years to hear.