|
We should never dismiss doing something good for others. The Lord who
sees all things done openly and in secret has promised that every deed will
receive a just reward. We shouldn't expect to receive our blessings in
the same manner to which we sent them out. The Lord who is infinite in
wisdom has multitudes of different ways to return unto us the good that we
bestowed upon others. The Lord Jesus declares in Luke 6:35-36, “But love
your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your
reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is
kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your
Father also is merciful.” Be encouraged and know that it is more to our
benefit that we are kind and courteous and helpful to those who are in
need. As much help as they will receive because of our attention, the
Lord will reward us much more in this life and in the New Life to come.
I hope this message inspires and challenges your heart to see the benefits
of being kind and compassionate towards those who are in need. See that
no good deed that is done with a pure heart will go unrewarded.
THE MEDICINE THAT SAVED ME
“I’ll be back in about half an hour,” I said, as I walked out the front door.
Still quite sore from my cancer surgery, I began the one mile walk to
Thrifty Drug Store Pharmacy on Yosemite Boulevard to pick up my medicine.
Things were a bit tough on my wife and I since the Stanislaus County
Welfare Department had taken almost everything we owned. It was almost
unbelievable that we owed almost one hundred thousand dollars in hospital
costs.
Our small trampoline business, car, wedding rings and money were all
confiscated by the county for partial payment of the large bill.
As I entered the pharmacy, I got in line to wait my turn. In front of me
was an elderly woman who was giving the pharmacists a very hard time.
Feeling a little sick at my stomach, I turned around and sat down in one
of the six hard chairs in the small waiting area. Within a minute the
older woman also came over and sat down. I watched as she continually
rubbed her legs, almost in tears, she began to talk with me.
“This gout is killing me,” she replied.
“I had a few bursts of that last year, in my feet,” I told her.
“Then you know how it hurts.”
“Yes Ma’am, I sure do.”
“Ma’am, there is nothing I can do for you. Your doctor is out of town and
there is no one I can possibly contact at this late hour. Besides you’re
over your medication quota for the month anyway.” the pharmacist advised her.
“What type of medicine do you take?” I asked.
“Colcho…something or other,” she tried to say.
“Colchicine,” yelled the girl, who was standing by the pharmacist.
“Ma’am, I have two or three full prescription bottles of that at home. I
barely used it, maybe two or three times. I mean...full bottles,” I told
her, in a quiet tone.
“How much do you want?” she replied.
“Nothing, you can have it.”
“Thank you dear. That is so kind of you,” she replied.
“One problem though,” I told her.
She looked at me, her eyes opened wide.
“You will have to wait until I walk home and bring it back.”
“Don’t you have a car, sonny?”
No Ma’am,” I replied.
When my prescription was filled, I paid for it and walked to the front
door. Sitting in a taxi cab was the elderly woman.
“Here’s your ride home,” she said, as she laughed and then began coughing.
Within minutes we arrived at our small house, located in the worst part of
Modesto known as “the airport district.”
The woman waited in the taxi while I ran into the house and dug out the
pills, from a cardboard box, underneath the bathroom sink. I told my wife
what I was doing and then walked out to the waiting cab and handed the
woman the three bottles of medicine.
“Why would you do this for a total stranger?” she asked.
“I guess because you need it. I don’t need it anymore. It would just go
bad sitting under the bathroom sink.”
“Give me your phone number, young man.”
As we had no telephone, I gave her the phone number of my in-laws, which
the taxi driver wrote down for her. As they drove away she waived to me
several times out the back window.
I went back into the house and took my own medications and then laid down
on the bed to rest for a few minutes.
Within seconds the medicine kicked in and I was out for the remainder of
the night.
Now owning nothing of value, I had no idea how we were going to start a
new life for ourselves. All night the dreams were haunting and terrible.
Early the next morning someone knocked on our door. When my wife answered,
there stood the elderly woman.
“Is that man here who gave me the medicine?”
“Hon, I think this is for you,” yelled out my sweet wife.
As I walked to the front door my wife gave me a funny look.
“Young man, can you and the misses come with me?” she asked.
“I stuck out my hands letting her know that I did not understand what she
meant.”
“Can you two come with me?” she stated again.
My wife walked back into the room to see what was going on.
“Hon, she wants us to go with her.”
“Go where?”
“Just you two never mind,” said the woman.
I looked outside and saw a taxi sitting in the driveway.
“Let’s go,” she said, as she put her hand into the small of my back.
We loaded into the taxi and off we went.
We must have driven for thirty minutes before the taxi drove up to a small
farm house located out in the country. The woman paid the taxi driver and
he drove away.
“How are we going to get home?” I asked the woman.
“You just let me worry about that,” she replied.
We followed her out back to an old barn.
“Didn’t you tell me yesterday that you didn’t own an automobile?”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“Well, I am going to give you a car. Open those two barn doors,” ordered
the lady.
I looked at my wife, raised my eyebrows and wondered what type of old
junk Model T Ford awaited us behind the two barn doors. When I opened the
creaking doors, I looked inside and right before me sat a brand new
Chevrolet station wagon. It was a little dusty, but not a scratch could be
seen on it.
“I’m sorry ma’am, but we cannot accept this.”
“And just why not,” the woman asked.
“The county will just take it from us.”
“Why would they do that?”
I owe almost one hundred thousand dollars for cancer surgery that I had
last month.
“How can they take your car?”
“Any vehicle less than three years old we cannot own.”
“Then there is no problem.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“This car is almost eight years old.”
“It can’t be. There is less than two thousand miles on the odometer,” I
stated, as I opened the door and looked inside.
“My husband purchased this car in Fresno two days before he died. He made
me promise that I would learn to drive and that I would never sell it.”
“Then why aren’t you driving it?”
“Never learned to drive”, she said, chuckling aloud.
“But he also told you never sell it.”
“I’m not selling anything. I’m giving it away, and I’m sure that my late
husband would approve.
After walking inside, the woman excused herself, telling us she was going
to retrieve the title from her safe. When she returned, she signed the
station wagon over to us.
After hugging my wife and I, she told us goodbye. She constantly waved
both her arms in the air as we drove down the dirt driveway.
This was the start of a new life for my wife and me. I remember thinking
that the three bottles of pills I had thrown beneath the bathroom sink was
the medicine that saved me.
By Roger Dean Kiser
Read and meditate on these scriptures:
Hebrews 10:22-24 “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of
faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies
washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith
without wavering; (for He is faithful that promised;) And let us consider
one another to provoke unto love and to good works.”
2 Corinthians 4:6-10 “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of
darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure
in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and
not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are
perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down,
but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord
Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.”
Revelation 22:12-14 Jesus declares “And, behold, I come quickly; and my
reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am
Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed
are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of
life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.”
All of these scriptures can be found in the King James Version Bible.
Today’s Selected Poem: BRIGHTEN YOUR CORNER
Click here to read --- http://www.Godswork.org/inpoem71.htm
Today’s Selected Testimony: ALBERT ODUYEMI’S TESTIMONY
Click here to read --- http://www.Godswork.org/testimony137.htm
In Christ’s Service,
Dwayne Savaya
God’s Work Ministry |
