Sunday, June 19, 2005
WHERE YOU ARE!
WHERE YOU ARE!
Author Unknown
Jun 19, 2005
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!
In his book "Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace," Kent Nerbum writes
about his experience driving a cab for a living. He remembers one night
in particular when he received a call at 2:30AM to go to a small brick
fourplex. Thinking he was going to pick up some late night party goers
or someone who had just had a fight with his or her spouse, he was
surprised when a small woman in her eighties answered the door.
She wore a print dress and an old fashioned pillbox hat. By her side
was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment was empty, except for a few
pieces of furniture covered with sheets and a cardboard box filled with
photos and glassware. The driver picked up her bag and helped her to
the cab. She gave him the address and then asked, "Could you drive
through downtown?"
"It's not the shortest way," he answered, "Oh, I don't mind," she said,
"I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a hospice. I don't have any family
left. The doctor says I don't have very long."
The driver reached over and shut off the meter. "What route would you
like me to go?"
For the next two hours, they drove through the city. She pointed out
the building where she worked as an elevator operator, the house where
she and her late husband lived as newlyweds, the furniture store that
was once a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl. Sometimes
she'd ask to slow down in front of a particular building or corner,
where she would just sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing. As
dawn broke over the horizon, she said, "I'm tired. Let's go now."
They drove to the small house that served as the hospice. Two
attendants came and helped her out of the cab and took her bag. She
asked the driver how much she owed for the fare. "Nothing," he said
"But you have to make a living," she insisted. "There are other
passengers," he replied.
Almost without thinking, he bent over and gave her a hug. She held him
lightly. "You gave an old woman a little moment of joy," she said.
"Thank you."
Then, in the dim morning light, he watched as she walked into the
hospice.
Kent Nerbum remembers; "We are so conditioned to think that our lives
revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware.
When that woman hugged me and said that I brought her a moment of joy,
it was possible to believe that I had been placed on earth for the sole
purpose of providing her with that last ride. I do not think that I
have done anything in my life more important." The most ordinary and
mundane aspects of our lives, our day-to-day struggles to make a living
and to make sense out of those struggles can become moments when the
works of God are made visible through us.
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!
PRAYER
O Father, give us the humility which realizes its ignorance, admits its
mistakes, recognizes its need, welcomes advice, accepts rebuke. Help us
always to praise rather than to criticize, to sympathize rather than to
discourage, to build rather than to destroy, and to think of people at
their best rather than at their worst. This we ask for thy name's sake.
(Prayer of William Barclay, 20th century)
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