A Beautiful Story From:
Until Christ Returns
By: Susan



 


 
A Beautiful Flower In A Broken Pot

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of
Johns Hopkins 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 a 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  preface 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 .
 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 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 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 orkale, 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 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 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, 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. "Here'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." 
(1 Samuel 16:7b)



Friends are very special. They make you smile and encourage you to
succeed.
 They lend an ear and they share a word of praise. Show your friends
how much you care.... Pass this on, and brighten someone's day.

Author Unknown







 

Music: "You Needed Me"