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17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17 KJV
SCARLET RIBBONS
I’m not sure what year the song, “Scarlet Ribbons” began playing on radios across the U.S.
I know it was still playing when I was a really little girl and my folks loved it.
The Song
As far as I recall, in the lyrics of the song, a man walks past his little girl’s bedroom and overhears her bedtime prayers. She asks God for scarlet ribbons for her hair.
The man has little money but scours the town that night only to find no one has scarlet ribbons to sell. He comes home discouraged and walks in to watch his sleeping child. On her bed, he finds scarlet ribbons. The song closes with his words, “If I live to be one hundred, I will never know from where, came those lovely scarlet ribbons, lovely scarlet ribbons for her hair.”
My dad would sing that song to me when I was four or five, and I had no clue where the ribbons were to have come from…in that old song.
Years passed.
The Birthday Kitten
The day came when one of my daughters was turning four. I had enough ingredients to make her a birthday cake, but no money for a gift. Nothing. I prayed. I don’t remember the words anymore.
What I do remember, within hours, was finding a tiny pathetic half-starved kitten at my front door.
I do remember there were no other cats at that time in the trailer park where we lived.
I remember wondering where she came from…
And, I remember thinking of “Scarlet Ribbons,” yet now knowing that, in real life and not in a fictional folksong, God does true miracles every day.
Now, if this was fiction instead of the truth, I might end this by telling you, we named the kitten Scarlet and she was a beauty.
But my daughter was four,
and this was a kitten who always looked like it was having a bad hair day.
…So, my daughter named her Fuzzy, and we loved her regardless.
So did a male cat who eventually moved into the trailer park.
Many Kittens
He and Fuzzy married and had many kittens,
grand kittens,
and great-grand kittens.
And whenever, I find myself humming that old tune, “Scarlet Ribbons,”
I think of my daughter’s fourth birthday…
…the day God sent us all,
miraculously…
..a gift of His Love.
…