First of all, the chain...
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First of all, the chain had come off the sprockets on his bicycle. Then, when he tried to be a big boy and fix it by himself, he had gotten some grease on his hands and just a little bit on his shirt. He knew that his folks would not be happy with the grease on his shirt, so he had decided to put some cleaner on the shirt. Unfortunately, he had grabbed the wrong container from the closet, so his shirt looked worse now than before he tried to fix it. In other words, Nathan did not have a very good day. To his surprise, his parents were stern but forgiving about the shirt. They complimented him on his effort to fix the bike by himself and offered to help him learn more about that. Later that night during the bedtime devotions, Nathan asked his folks about what God was like. His father smiled and said, "Well, Nate, God does pretty much what your mother and I just did today with you only on a bigger scale. He forgives us, loves us and is ready and willing to help us all the time. In fact we sang about all this yesterday in church. The song was called 'Children Of The Heavenly Father'." -- Thompson
