I received this e-mail from a friend this morning and thought I'd share it with you'll. As I read it the thought came rushing back to me, you never know whom you life will affect and like the scripture says if you do it unto the least of these you do it unto me.
May this Bless & Speak to You, as it did to me!
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 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 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 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 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 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....Just a thought....
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.
-- Leviticus 19:18
This is Wayne being smashed by two other cars at the demolition derby last night. Thanks goodness we survived a night without injuries, which was my biggest fear. Tracy and I (my good friend who's husband Joe was the mechanic for the car) were both having butterflies before the derby started hoping that #107 would not be the first one to put their flag down. Wayne was not the first one out of the derby but his good ole' radiator overheated, thus the flag went down about midway through the derby.
Another part of the fan base: Marva (Wayne's niece) and her boyfriend Jonathan, Andrea (Wayne's niece) and her husband David.
This is a picture of the team before they played their first all-star game, the uniforms were so clean with no grass stains or brick dust rubbed in. Their all-star coach (Mark-in the center back)did a wonderful job coaching, this will be his last year coaching this age group because his boys will both be in the next age group.
This is a picture of the Cal Ripkin District 4 Championship Team holding their trophies. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CLAP!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!CLAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
