My husband and I were out for a walk late Sunday night. It was almost 8:00 p.m. and it was dark outside. As we were headed back into our neighborhood, the headlights of an approaching car pointed out an animal off the side of the road. It was a possum. I laughed at how cute it was lying on the grass, blinking it's eyes and "playing dead," but as we walked closer, it began to roll back and forth, it's mouth opening and closing as if to cry out in pain, gasping for breath. It had been hit by a car and was actually dying in front of our eyes.
I began to cry as I felt so sorry for this animal. In silence, we walked away and continued on our journey home, but thoughts began to flood my mind. Thoughts like how many times I had accidentally hit an animal and drove on by, not giving a second thought about the scene I had just taken in. Thought's about how this little guy, gross as the situation was, could be taking it's last breath at that very moment with no one noticing.
We continued our walk together, hand in hand, with the only sound being the sound of my tears and runny nose.
Then, the sound of my husband's voice broke the silence. His words were direct, yet the heaviness of the truth he spoke penetrated my heart.
"That is what people saw in me, Jody. Some people saw that I was dying, gasping for air, and turned away. But, other's saw potential in me; they saw hope that I couldn't see. Because of God's love that they had experienced, they stood by me and loved me through the garbage in my life. That's what I see in others. There are people struggling in their lives everyday. Are we going to be people that will just walk on by, or will we be people that help others get back up?"
How about you? Has the Lord done something in your life that you can share with others to encourage them? Personally, I have found that because I have walked through seasons of hurt, despair and addiction, God has given me a deeper compassion for desperate people who are in pain and desire change.
I read the following story the day after the "possum event" happened. I believe it fits perfect with this devotion and further drives this point home. I pray that everyday, we ask God for His eyes to see others how He sees them and not look at their outward appearance.
1 Samuel 16:7: The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
THE OLD FISHERMAN
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 '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 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 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 4a.m., and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us.
Through the years he came to stay overnight with us many times. And 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 were 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 how 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, ugly, rusty bucket.
I thought to myself, 'If this were my plant, I'd put it in the loveliest container I had!'
My friend soon 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 find it's place in the garden.' She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven.....an especially beautiful scene where God might have said when He came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman....
'He won't mind starting in this small body till he's ready for his place in My Garden.'
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.
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