My aunt forwarded this email to me the other day. There is a wonderful lesson to be learned from this story, and how true it is..
THE OLD DENTED BUCKET
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 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).
Showing posts with label heart attacks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heart attacks. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
It's a Do-Over!
picture courtesy of Gracebook.com
I was reading through the Facebook postings from the weekend and noticed that there was a very clear change in the tone of those comments from Saturday to Sunday. Everyone was excited for the day on Saturday with lots of planned activities and fun. Sunday was a day for church and family, more somber and serene. There were more pictures uploaded on Sunday. But Sunday evening, there was a definite change...much more lamenting about the weekend ending and about the duties of the next day and the week ahead. And I started thinking about that (I know, big surprise, huh)?
It is a fact that more people die of heart attacks on Mondays than any other day of the week. There are more heart attacks from 4:00 A.M. to 10:00 A.M. on Mondays than any other time. There are also more suicides on Mondays than any other day of the week. Interesting! Are you aware that this phenomenon, while not isolated in this country, shows itself much more clearly in the United States than in other countries? Let's see, we're the most powerful nation in the world, with the best health care system. Supposedly, we have the best of everything, so why would the day of the week create such havoc in our lives?
Perhaps we should take a look at just how we're "spending" our days. If the very thought of Monday, creates illness, then what is there about Monday that causes it? Is it the people you work with? Is it the work itself? I can honestly say, as I sit here and think about it, that I don't think I've ever held a job that made me dislike the idea of going there, on Monday or any other day. There were times that going to work was not fun, but those times were short-lived and I knew they would pass. I can't imagine going to work every day to something that I hated so much it made me sick. What a horrible way to live your life! I've known people who felt this way and I always encouraged them to make changes: find ways to make your work better or find a different job that made you feel happier about yourself and the work you do.
My goodness, life is too short to be so miserable that you make yourself sick. Remember, what you focus on, you get more of, so if you're focusing on how unhappy you are and how much you hate what you do, then you will just get more unhappiness and hate. DO SOMETHING to make it better! We all have choices. We like to think that we don't, but even not making a choice is a choice. You control your destiny by what you choose. So.....change your choices! It's never to late for a "do-over." Go to school or just enroll in a class, learn a new skill or trade, change positions where you work, change shifts, transfer, find a new job or two new jobs, but DO SOMETHING!
I have a lovely picture with a quote on it that I read every morning:
"I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning." (J.B. Priestley)
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