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WITandWISDOM(tm) - November 22, 1999 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: "We cannot truly face life until we face the fact that it will be taken away from us." - Billy Graham (E-zine: INSPIRATION A DAY! Mailto:inspiration_a_day-subscribe@listbot.com) ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: "THE OLD FISHERMAN" Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of a hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out patients at the clinic. One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. "Why, he's hardly taller than my eight-year-old," I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face lopsided from swelling, red and raw. Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, "Good evening. I've come to see if you've a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there's no bus 'til morning." He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon but with no success, no one seemed to have a room. "I guess it's my face . . . I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments . . ." For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: "I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning." I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. "No thank you. I have plenty." And he held up a brown paper bag. When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn't take long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury. He didn't tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was prefaced with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going. At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children's room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, "Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won't put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair." He paused a moment and then added, "Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don't seem to mind." I told him he was welcome to come again. And on his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a bucket of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they'd be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us. In the years he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious. When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning. "Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!" Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God. Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse, As she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, "If this were my plant, I'd put it in the loveliest container I had!" My friend changed my mind. "I ran short of pots," she explained, "and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn't mind starting out in this old pail. It's just for a little while, 'til I can put it out in the garden." She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but my mind was on a parallel track. I was imagining just such a scene in heaven. "Here's an especially beautiful one," God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman. "There won't be any problem starting off in this body." All this happened long ago - and now, in God's garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7b) (Beryl Unger) ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: A man and his wife had gone to bed long before when there is a rat-a-tat-tat on the door. He rolls over and looks at his clock, and it's half past three in the morning. "I'm not getting out of bed at this time," he thinks, and rolls over. Then, a louder knock follows. "Aren't you going to answer that?" says his wife. So he drags himself out of bed and goes downstairs. He opens the door and there is man standing at the door. It didn't take the homeowner long to realize the man was drunk. "Hi there," slurs the stranger. "Can you give me a push?" "No, get lost. It's half past three. I was in bed," says the man and slams the door. He goes back up to bed and tells his wife what happened and she says, "Dave, that wasn't very nice of you. Remember that night we broke down in the pouring rain on the way to pick the kids up from the baby sitter and you had to knock on that man's house to get us started again? What would have happened if he'd told us to get lost?" "But the guy was drunk," says the husband. "It doesn't matter," says the wife. "He needs our help and it would be the Christian thing to help him." So the husband gets out of bed again, gets dressed, and goes downstairs. He opens the door, and not being able to see the stranger anywhere he shouts, "Hey, do you still want a push?" And he hears a voice cry out, "Yeah please." So, still being unable to see the stranger he shouts, "Where are you?" And the stranger replies, "I'm over here, on your swing." (E-zine: AMERICA'S JOKE Mailto:subscribe-aj@listserv.salko.com) (E-zine: MONDAY FODDER Mailto:dgaufaaa@iohk.com?subject=Subscribe_Monday_Fodder) ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: Every Thanksgiving we play a Turkey Bowl football game to determine neighborhood bragging rights. One year our team was close to scoring a game-winning touchdown, so we all listened carefully as our quarterback explained a play to us in the huddle. "I'll look over the defense when we come to the line," he said. "If I call out a color, I'll hand the ball off and we'll run left. If I call out a fruit, I'll throw a pass into the end zone." Wow, we're actually using strategy this year, I thought. How can we lose with such a wise team leader? When our quarterback came to the line, he looked around, then barked out the signals: "15, 43, 18, orange, hike!" - Readers' Digest, November 1999 (Magazine: Reader's Digest http:www.readersdigest.com ) ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: TIME TICKER: I hope you have the Shockwave plug-in, because if you do, you'll be able to enjoy this incredible site. Find out what time it is anywhere in the world with this great multimedia site. A definite bookmark for those frequent travelers! http://www.timeticker.com (E-zine: PREMIUM LINKS Mailto:newsletter@premiumlinks.net?body=subscribe) |