1 Samuel 16:7b

Submitted by Alan - a wonderful soul!

1 Samuel 16:7b

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 outpatients 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 8-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 5 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 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 7 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 or kale,
every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk 3 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, 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.

Nothing will happen if you do not decide to pass it along. The only
thing that will happen if you DO pass it on is that someone might smile
(because of you).

...End of Forwarded Message…bigfoot16…