Monday, June 2, 2008

Consider this:


A STORY
re-told to the managing editor by Denise Dix

A poor cleric serving a poor congregation somewhere in Mexico needed to get some medicine for his daughter who had asthma. He took some of the little store of money they had and set out for the pharmacy. On the way, a woman who knew him approached him and asked for a prayer for her, for she had some imminent need. She didn’t ask for money, but the man thought for a moment and gave her the medicine money in his pocket which would resolve her problem.

Walking back home, without his daughter's needed medicine, he thought about how he might be able to borrow the medicine money from an uncle, if the uncle had it to lend. As he was passing by a cafe a waiter burst out and threw a tray of bread-crumbs onto the sidewalk, startling the pastor.

Instantly, from out of nowhere a big flock of sparrows descended on the bread-crumbs. All of a sudden there was a huge assembly of the little birds. The man thought, for he was spiritually-grounded, that it was a sign from God, that He would take care of the need the pastor himself had. The man was a devout, biblically-oriented sort, given to thought-patterns like that.

He got back home and told his wife that he didn’t get the medicine, and why he didn't. Next morning a man appeared at the benevolent but needful fellow’s door and handed him an envelope with money in it. He told the poor pastor that he’d had a dream the previous night. A voice spoke to him in this dream and told him to give the money to the pastor. The simple Mexican did as he was asked. Without questioning, he delivered the money, for he had it.

The man was from the pastor’s congregation. He had no inkling of the need that gave rise to his act, and the pastor hadn’t yet exercised his option to ask his uncle if he could help him.

It felt to the pastor like the biblical story. If God feeds the birds of the air who neither sow nor reap, and the lilies of the field that also neither sow nor reap and are yet beautifully clothed, what then will He do for us? (Matthew 6:26-30).

The sewer raccoons who find free pizza and other cost-free things in the gutter - and we at the SR News - say AMEN.