Our house was directly
across the street from the clinic entrance of Johns Hopkins
Hospital in Baltimore . We lived downstairs & 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 & 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, & there's no bus 'till 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
& 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 a long time to see that this old man had an
over sized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a
living to support his daughter, her five children & 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 thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain
accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He
was thankful for 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, & 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 & 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 & 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 & a quart 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 & fresh. I
knew his bus left at 4 a.m., & 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 & 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 &
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 illness 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 & the good with
gratitude..
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, till I can
put it out in the garden.'
She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining
just such a scene in heaven. There's an especially beautiful one,' God
might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman. 'He
won't mind starting in this small 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.'
Friends are very special. They make you smile & encourage you to succeed.
They lend an ear & they share a word of praise. Show your friends how much
you care.
Never look down on anybody,
unless you're helping them up.
"Life without God is like an unsharpened
pencil - it has no point."
WISHING YOU LOVE IN YOUR
HEART...PEACE IN YOUR SOUL...AND JOY IN YOUR LIFE.....ALWAYS...
AUTHOR ~ UNKNOWN TO ME
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