{"id":11027,"date":"2013-05-01T07:45:02","date_gmt":"2013-05-01T12:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kathyschiffer\/?p=11027"},"modified":"2016-09-30T15:55:36","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T20:55:36","slug":"margaret-thatchers-heartwarming-letter-to-a-9-year-old-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kathyschiffer\/2013\/05\/margaret-thatchers-heartwarming-letter-to-a-9-year-old-boy\/","title":{"rendered":"Margaret Thatcher\u2019s Heartwarming Letter to a 9-Year-Old Boy"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><blockquote><p><em>\u201cHowever good we try to be, we can never be as kind, gentle and wise as Jesus. There will be times when we do or say something we wish we hadn\u2019t done and we shall be sorry and try not to do it again.\u00a0 We do our best but our best is not as good as his daily life.\u00a0 \u201cIf you and I were to paint a picture, it wouldn\u2019t be as good as the picture of great artists. So our lives can\u2019t be as good as the life of Jesus.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11030\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11030\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/148\/2013\/05\/9-yr-old-receives-letter-from-Margaret-Thatcher1.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11030\" title=\"9 yr old receives letter from Margaret Thatcher\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/148\/2013\/05\/9-yr-old-receives-letter-from-Margaret-Thatcher1-300x192.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"192\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11030\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Liddelow today, and as a nine-year-old letter writer in 1980<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong style=\"font-size: 13px;\">That\u2019s the message British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sent<\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 13px;\"> in response to a question from an earnest little boy in April 1980.\u00a0 David Liddelow was only nine years old when he wrote to the Iron Lady,<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cLast night when we were saying prayers, my daddy said everyone has done wrong things except Jesus.\u00a0 I said I don\u2019t think you have done bad things because you are the Prime Minister.\u00a0 Am I right or is my daddy?\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 13px;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/148\/2013\/05\/Margaret-Thatcher.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-11032\" title=\"Margaret Thatcher\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/148\/2013\/05\/Margaret-Thatcher.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"191\" height=\"264\"><\/a>Thatcher responded honestly,<\/strong> admitting that she shared the weakness of all mankind:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cAs Prime Minister I try very hard to do things right; and because Jesus gave us a perfect example, I try even harder.\u00a0 But your father is right in saying that we can never be perfect as he was.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>The Right Reverend Richard Chartres, preaching the homily<\/strong> during Mrs. Thatcher\u2019s April 17 funeral in London\u2019s St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral, read that letter as an example of her ability to reach out to the young and to those not always deemed \u201cimportant\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But the letter says more about her faith,<\/strong> according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wnd.com\/2013\/04\/thatchers-1980-letter-to-boy-9-about-jesus\/?cat_orig=faith\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>WorldNetDaily<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>But it also gives a glimpse of her personal religious faith, grounded in the Methodism of her parents.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>She spoke of constantly striving to live up to an ideal and \u201ctrying even harder\u201d to follow the \u201cperfect example\u201d she said she found in Jesus.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Its tone contrasts dramatically with that adopted by other politicians, summed up by Tony Blair\u2019s chief Downing Street spin doctor Alastair Campbell years later when he said: \u00a0\u201cWe don\u2019t do God.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Read the rest of the story <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wnd.com\/2013\/04\/thatchers-1980-letter-to-boy-9-about-jesus\/?cat_orig=faith\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cHowever good we try to be, we can never be as kind, gentle and wise as Jesus. There will be times when we do or say something we wish we hadn\u2019t done and we shall be sorry and try not to do it again.\u00a0 We do our best but our best is not as good [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[1167],"class_list":["post-11027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","tag-margaret-thatcher"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Margaret Thatcher\u2019s Heartwarming Letter to a 9-Year-Old Boy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cHowever good we try to be, we can never be as kind, gentle and wise as Jesus. 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