The Old Fisherman

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7 ESV).

There is a wonderful story about an old fisherman that perfectly illustrates the truth of this morning’s Scripture:

The house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. The simple family lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out patients at the clinic. One summer evening as supper was being prepared, there was a knock at the door. As the door opened it revealed a truly awful looking man standing on the porch. Why, he's hardly taller than my eight-year-old, the wife and mother thought as she 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 her 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 she hesitated, but his next words convinced her: "I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning." She told him they would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. She went inside and finished getting supper. When they were ready, she asked the old man if he would join them. "No thank you. I have plenty." And he held up a brown paper bag.

When they had finished the dishes, she 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 her 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 thanksgiving 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, they put a camp cot in the children's room for him. When she 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." She told him he was welcome to come again.

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 she had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they'd be nice and fresh. She knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for them. In the years he came to stay overnight with them there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times they 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 they received these little remembrances, they often thought of a comment their 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 they did lose roomers once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear. She knew their family always would be grateful to have known him; from him they learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.

Sometime ago I was visiting a friend who has a green thumb. 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." I laughed as I imagined just such a scene in heaven. "Here's an especially beautiful one," God might have said when he came to the soul of the old fisherman. "He won't mind starting in this small body." It’s not the container you’re planted in, but the blooms you are producing that really count.