Thursday, April 2
This post was provided by Deacon Fred Toca
The Story of the Apples
God IS ALWAYS WITH US...and sometimes calls on us to do HIS work…
A few years ago, a group of salesmen went to a regional sales meeting in Chicago. They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night dinner. They were running late to catch their flight.
And in their rush, with getting tickets and baggage, one of these salesmen inadvertently knocked over a table which held a display of baskets of apples. The apples flew everywhere. But, without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach their flight in time. All but one. He paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his feelings, and experienced a moment of compassion for the young girl whose apple stand had been overturned.
He yelled to his buddies to go on without him and to tell his wife that he would take a later flight. Then he returned to the place where the apples were all over the terminal floor.
He was glad that he did.
The 14-year-old girl selling the apples was totally blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her face in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled apples as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping and no one caring about her plight.
The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them into the baskets, and helped reset up the display. As he did this, he noticed that many of the apples had been battered and bruised: these he placed aside in another basket. When he finished, he took out his wallet and said, to the girl, “Here please take this $50 dollars for the trouble we caused and the damage we did. Then he asked her, are you okay?
She nodded, yes, through her tears.
Then he went on to say, “I hope we didn’t spoil your day to badly.”
When the salesman began to walk away the bewildered girl called out to him. “Mister, mister …” He paused and turned back. And she asked, “Are you Jesus?”
He stopped in mid-stride and wonder, then slowly made his way off to book a later flight, but the question kept burning in his heart and in his soul: “Are you Jesus?”
As we shelter in place during this time of pandemic, we too can reach out (by phone, e- mail or social media) to be JESUS to each other.