Straight Paths- Who Will Be Jesus to Them?

Who Will Be Jesus to Them?

Loren Hardin

For The Ashland Beacon

This is part two of a series about Carl, who was seventy-two years old when he enrolled in outpatient hospice services with end-stage lymphoma. Carl is a plain-spoken country fellow, a farmer, and retired stone quarry worker. Carl and his wife, Mary, raised their children on their farm but moved to an apartment about two years before being diagnosed with lymphoma. Carl’s lymphoma is now taking a toll on him and he’s spending most of his time in bed. The desire of Carl’s heart continues to be to serve God, but he admits that at times he questions his worth and at times prays for God to come and take him home. Carl may question his worth, but he continues to inspire me; and I’m confident that the following story will challenge and inspire you.

                 Here’s Carl: “I used to have a booth at the flea market. There was this fellow who had a booth near mine. He was a tough guy, a motorcycle rider type. He had a nasty turn and a raw attitude. He thought he owned the world. You know, people are afraid of a guy like that. Maybe I should have been, but I wasn’t. He treated an old man real mean one day and I told him, ‘I don’t like the way you do. I wouldn’t be like that. You can’t do that here. We all try to get along here.’ Then I told him, ‘What you need is a friend, and I’m going to be your friend.’ Then he told me, ‘I don’t have any friends, and I don’t get along with anybody.’ Then I told him, ‘The devil just has you all torn up.’ Then he said, ‘You don’t know me.’ Then I said, ‘No, I don’t, but I would like to know you and help you.’ Then he said, ‘No one can help me.’”

                 Carl continued, “The breaker box for all the booths at the flea market was located inside his booth. It kicked off a lot and just for spite he wouldn’t turn the breaker back on, so none of us had lights. I told him to turn it back on one day and he said, ‘I don’t need to.’ There were bigger men than I was there that day, but they were afraid of him. He looked like he would slap your jaws, but I asked him, ‘Why can’t you just turn that back on?’ Then he said, ‘That’s not my problem.’ But I said, ‘Now listen, I’m going to turn that back on.’ Then he asked me, ‘How do you know you will? Maybe you will and maybe you won’t.’ Then I told him, ‘You just watch me.’ Then all the other people with booths at the flea market said, ‘Carl, he’s gonna hit you.’ And I said, ‘No he ain’t.’ But he could have snapped me into. I don’t know why I was so bold. The Lord just gave me boldness.

                 “After that he kept the breaker box open so it wouldn’t overheat. I went back and thanked him and told him, ‘You’ll get along with others better that way.’ Then he said, ‘I don’t care what they think.’ But he never shut that breaker box door again. And he would look back at me from time to time and grin and give me an ‘okay’ with his thumb. After I got cancer, while I was taking chemotherapy, he would ask me, ‘Mr. Brown, how are you doing today?’ and once he got a big ‘get well’ card and took it around the flea market and told everybody, ‘I want everybody’s name on it.’ And his name was at the top. He even called me at home to see how I was doing and said, ‘This is your friend.’ A lot of people told me I shouldn’t fool with him, but he needed a friend. I still believe he’s going to get saved.”

                 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:44-45, NKJV)

                  “He came home from work last night to find that she had gone. Now he’s spending his first Sunday sitting in a pew alone. There are whispers all around him, his heart breaks into. He’s wondering who will reach out and help him make it through. Who will be Jesus to him? Who’ll show the love that restores him again? He doesn’t need a judge he needs a friend. Who will be Jesus to him?” (“Who will be Jesus to them?”, by Bruce Carroll)

                 Loren Hardin was a social worker with Southern Ohio Medical Center Hospice for twenty-nine years. You can purchase his book, “Straight Paths: Insights for living from those who have finished the course” at Amazon.