I watched intently as my little brother was caught in the act.  He sat in the corner of the living room, a pen in one hand and my father's hymnbook in the other.  As my father walked into the room, my brother cowered slightly; he sensed that he had done something wrong.  From a distance, I saw that he had opened my father's brand-new book and scribbled across the length and breadth of the entire first page with a pen.  Now, staring at my father fearfully, he and I both waited for his punishment. 

My father picked up his prized hymnal, looked at it carefully, and then sat down without saying a word.  Books were precious to him; he was a clergyman and the holder of several degrees.  For him, books were knowledge, and yet, he loved his children.  What he did in the next few minutes was remarkable.  Instead of punishing my brother, instead of scolding or yelling or reprimanding, he sat down, took the pen from my brother's hand and then wrote in the book himself, alongside the scribbles John had made: "John's word 1959, age two.  How many times have I looked into your beautiful face and into your warm, alert eyes looking up at me and thanked God for the one who has now scribbled in my new hymnal?  You have made the book sacred as have your brothers and sister to so much of my life." 

Wow, I thought.  This is punishment? 

From time to time I take a book down - not just a cheesy paperback but a real book that I know I will have for many years to come - and I give it to one of my children to scribble or write their names in.  And as I look at their artwork, I think about my father, and how he taught me about what really matters in life: people, not objects; tolerance, not judgment; love which is at the very heart of a family. 

I think about these things, and I smile.  And I whisper, "Thank you, Dad."

_____________________________________________________
Shipwreck Prayers
-- author unknown 

A voyaging ship was wrecked during a storm at sea and only two of the men on it were able to swim to a small, desert like island. The two survivors, not knowing what else to do, agreed that they had no other recourse but to pray to God. However, to find out whose prayer was more powerful, they agreed to divide the territory between them and stay on opposite sides of the island.

The first thing they prayed for was food. The next morning, the first man saw a fruit-bearing tree on his side of the land, and he was able to eat its fruit. The other man's parcel of land remained barren.

After a week, the first man was lonely and he decided to pray for a wife. The next day, another ship was wrecked, and the only survivor was a woman who swam to his side of the land. On the other side of the island, there was nothing.

Soon the first man prayed for a house, clothes, more food. The next day, all of these were given to him. However, the second man still had nothing.

Finally, the first man prayed for a ship, so that he and his wife could leave the island. In the morning, he found a ship docked at his side of the island. The first man boarded the ship with his wife and decided to leave the second man on the island. He considered the other man unworthy to receive God's blessings, since none of his prayers had been answered.

As the ship was about to leave, the first man heard a voice from Heaven booming, "Why are you leaving your companion on the island?"

"My blessings are mine alone, since I was the one who prayed for them," the first man answered. "His prayers were all unanswered and so he does not deserve anything." 

"You are mistaken!" the voice rebuked him. "He had only one prayer, which I answered. If not for that, you would not have received any of my blessings.

"Tell me," the first man asked the voice, "What did he pray for that I should owe him anything?"

"He prayed that all your prayers be answered." 
________________________________________________
A Beautiful Flower in an Old Pail
-- author unknown

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 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 4:00 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 a gift like vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery:  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 is 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 may have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman. "He won't mind starting in this small body -- just for a little while." 

"Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."   
   -- I Samuel 16:76

This is an Uncle Arthur story.  I think the title was

 "I Can Sleep on Windy Nights" from Uncle Arthur's Online.

Years ago, a farmer owned land along the Atlantic seacoast.

He constantly advertised for hired hands. Most people were

reluctant to work on farms along the Atlantic. They dreaded the

awful storms that raged across the Atlantic, wreaking havocon

the buildings and crops.

As the farmer interviewed applicants for the job, he received

A steady stream of refusals.

Finally, a short, thin man, well past middle age, approached

the farmer. "Are you a good farm hand?" the farmer asked him.

"Well, I can sleep when the wind blows," answered the little man.

Although puzzled by this answer, the farmer, desperate for help,

Hired him. The little man worked well around the farm, busy from

dawn to dusk,  and the farmer felt satisfied with the man's work.

Then one night the wind howled loudly in from offshore.

Jumping out of bed, the farmer grabbed a lantern and rushed

next door to the hired hand's sleeping quarters. He shook the

little man and yelled, "Get up!  A storm is coming!

Tie things down before they blow away!"

The little man rolled over in bed and said firmly, "No

sir. I told you, I can sleep when the wind blows."

Enraged by the response, the farmer was tempted to fire him on

the spot. Instead, he hurried outside to prepare for the storm.

To his amazement, he discovered that all of the haystacks had

been covered with tarpaulins. The cows were in the barn, the chickens

were in the coops, and the doors were barred.

The shutters were tightly secured.  Everything was tied down.

Nothing could blow away. The farmer then understood what his

hired hand meant, so he returned to his bed to also sleep while

the wind blew.