Nosey Nellie Finds a Best Friend

Nosey Nellie Finds a

Best Friend

WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY

Lucy McGuire

Nosey Nellie Finds a

Best Friend Written and Illustrated by

Lucy McGuire A Sequel to Her Other Books,

Nosey Nellie Visits the Farm

Nosey Nellie Finds the Real Christmas

Graphic Design by Elizabeth Peters Š 2016

It was Saturday, the day before Easter. Nellie had been playing with her friend Grace. Grace had to leave to go shopping with her mother, so Nellie came skipping home. She saw her mother kneeling in the garden with a basket of vegetables.

“Are you planting those things?” asked Nellie.

“No, I’m picking them to make a fresh salad for lunch,” answered her mother.

“Nellie, would you like to help me?”

When they finished picking all they would need, they took them to the kitchen.

Nellie and her mother prepared their vegetables, and her mother said, “Nellie, how would you like to play a guessing game? I’ll ask a question, and when you get the answer, it will be your turn.

She thought a minute and said, “What are those bees doing in our yard now?”

Nellie laughed, “ my teacher told me that they get food from the flowers and take it back to their queen in the hive.

And they make honey!”

“Good,” said her mother. “ Those bees and butterflies pollinate other plants as they fly around, and keep everything alive! That’s the job God gave them to do.

Now, it is your turn.”

Nellie thought a minute, “What color eggs do the bluebirds lay?”

Let’s see, said mother. “I think I read they are white or pale blue with dark spots.”

“Right!” said Nellie. “Your turn.”

“Well,” mother said, “There is a caterpillar that makes a little home in a cocoon for a while. What does it look like when it comes out?”

“Mom,” Nellie said, “I don’t know.”

Her mom laughed and said, “It becomes a butterfly!”

“Are you teasing me,” asked Nellie, “That’s weird.”

Mother said, “That’s the way God made them. At first they are ugly, and with God’s help they turn into something beautiful! It’s a picture of how God takes our ugly sins and turns us, with Jesus’ help, into loving and kind people.”

“My turn,” said Nellie. “Why do rabbits lay colored eggs and hide them on Easter?”

“That is a fairy tale, Nellie.” said mother. “It’s just a fun thing to do for Easter. Now, instead of a question I’ll just tell you why we really have Easter...”

“Do you remember the Christmas story?” asked mother.

“Yes,” answered Nellie. “God was born on earth and when he grew up, he healed people and fed hungry people and was kind to children.”

“Jesus chose 12 men, He called them his disciples to help him”, said mother. “And they traveled around telling people how loving and good God is.”

“Jesus was sent to our earth to make a way for anyone to have their sins forgiven and live with God in heaven forever. But to forgive sins, Jesus would have to take those sins on himself and die for them.”

“Do you know what a sin is, Nellie?”

“Yes, it’s when I tell a lie or take something that belongs to somebody else”, said Nellie.

“That’s true, Nellie. And everybody has sin in their heart.

“In Jesus’ time, people were saying that He was King of the Jews. The high priests and other leaders were afraid Jesus would take away their power and influence. So they arranged to have Jesus captured.”

“Jesus was taken to court like a criminal, and judged to be guilty of death.

“He was made to carry a cross up on a hill and was nailed to it until he died.

“Jesus knew that would happen, and willingly did it. He knew that He could take all the sins of the world on his shoulders and carry them to the grave.

“What nobody understood was that Jesus would not stay dead!

“He is God, so He couldn’t be kept in the grave with those sins. He died on Friday, and on Easter Sunday morning, two women went to the place where He was buried.

He was not there!

“He was alive again!

“For 40 days he was seen by friends and disciples. Then he explained that He was going to heaven, but would send the Holy Spirit to help them. They were to go to the whole world and tell everyone that their sins could be forgiven if they would believe and put God first in their lives.

“Mother, does that mean for us, too?” Nellie asked thoughtfully.

“Yes it does! I have asked Jesus to take away my sins, and I love Him. Everyone has to do it for themselves. If you believe this, Nellie, you can ask God right now to forgive your sins and become your very best friend.”

“Oh, mother,”, cried Nellie, “I DO want to do that right now.”

Nellie’s mother and Nellie prayed right there in their kitchen. When Nellie’s dad came in for lunch, Nellie ran to him and told him what she had done.

“That is the best news!” he told her. “Now we are all in the family of God together, forever!”

After lunch, Nellie and her mother went to her Grandmother’s house. They brought her an Easter basket and some flowers. Nellie ran to tell her grandmother how she had prayed and became part of God’s family.

“That is wonderful, Nellie”, said Grandmother. “You have just made me very happy.”

Nellie gave her a big hug, and they looked into the basket of goodies.

On the way home, mother said, “Nellie, don’t you think that guessing game we played would be fun to play with your friends? You could learn lots of new things from each other. Maybe they would like to make Jesus their best friend, too.

“When you are old enough to read the Bible, you can learn a whole lot more about Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit and how much God loves us.

Nellie and her mother spent the afternoon boiling eggs for Easter.

Nellie laughed and said, “Maybe the fairy tale Easter bunny will color these for us and hide them for me to find!�

Nellie’s Easter Prayer Thank you, God! Thank you for dying on the cross for me and taking away my sins.

Thank you for loving me so much.

And...

Thank you for being my very best friend.

Lucy McGuire with her first Nosey Nellie book.

You’re never too old to accomplish something new.

Lucy McGuire was 94 when she published her first book.

Asked how she came about that project, she replies, “I woke up one morning, and the Lord said to me, “Write a children’s book!” Lucy wasn’t about to tell the Lord no.

She remembered a gourd head doll with a long crookneck nose and her character was born: Nosey Nellie. She wanted children to know that God provides their food. “Too many of them think it all comes from the grocery store!”

“God put it in my mind to write it, Lucy says, “Cause I could never do it on my own. And the pictures were hard to paintespecially with these eyes.” (She has failing eyesight with macular degeneration.)

Lucy hadn’t written any books before, but she had enjoyed painting for many years. After visiting Arkansas’ War Eagle Fair, she took some lessons in the Missouri hills, then continued painting for a local craftsman in the Smokey Mountains for a number of years.

Her first printing of 50 “Nosey Nellie Visits the Farm” disappeared in less than two weeks. The local newspaper interviewed her for a feature article, then the library asked her to do a book signing. Her friends at Ashbrook Manor bought them for grandchildren, and soon she had sold more than 250 books.

Christmas was coming, and Lucy decided that children needed to know about the real Christmas story, so she labored on her second book, “Nosey Nellie Finds the Real Christmas”. It was just as popular as the first book.

“I didn’t plan to write anymore,” said Lucy. “It is just too hard to see to paint.” But then Easter came, and Lucy, now 96, felt she had to finish the set with the story of the real Easter.

Here is Lucy McGuire’s newest book, “ Nosey Nellie Finds a Best Friend”. Her hope is that readers will understand that “knowing about Jesus is not the same as knowing Him”.

Copyright 2016 Farmington, MO $7.00