> The Rented Room
> 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
> 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. 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.
>
> =====
> Smile and the world will smile with you
>
>
> 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
> 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. 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.
>
> =====
> Smile and the world will smile with you
>
>