The minibus was
ticking over in the playground of the school where I worked. “All right, lads, jump in,” I called.
The afternoon was
timetabled for “Community Service”, and I was responsible for taking the boys
to their work place.
An unusual request
for help had reached the school office that morning. An elderly lady was having problems with her
bedroom carpet. It had rucked up so that
the wardrobe door would not open properly, and she was afraid of tripping over
it. Could we help?
I’d chosen a group
of burly fifteen-year-olds, who always welcomed any excuse to get off the
school premises!
Our first job was to
move the old lady out of the bedroom.
That wasn’t as easy as it sounds! She was very shaky on her legs, her
back was painful and she was rather heavy.
The lads were
surprisingly gentle. “No problem, Sir,” one of them said. “My gran’s just the
same. She can’t get out of her chair
without help.” He bent forward, offering
a muscular arm. “Here you are,
Missus. Just you hold on there. We won’t let you go.”
They did a grand job,
heaving, pushing and edging her into a comfortable chair in the kitchen.
We then inched the
wardrobe off the crumpled carpet and manhandled it out into the hall.
Next, we stripped
the bed, upended it and edged it through the door. Two chairs, a dressing-table, a yapping
sausage dog and a moth-eaten tabby cat followed.
By now, the room
resounded with a volley of sneezes, sniffs and coughs. By the look of it, the floor hadn’t seen a
vacuum cleaner for years! There was dust everywhere.
At last we were ready
to begin lifting the carpet so that we could sweep the floor before we relaid
it.
“Careful, lads,” I
instructed. “Roll up that end first.”
The carpet rolled
back to reveal bare floorboards. And
then, to our amazement, we saw the treasure – a neat pile of ten-pound notes,
brown with age and covered with fluff and dust.
The boys were
astonished.
“Look at that – it’s
a fortune!” they exclaimed.
Their “leader”, a
big fellow who was known by the nickname of “Bulldog”, clearly had it in mind
to pocket the prize.
“We might as well
keep it, sir. She’ll newer know,” he
said.
“Thank you,
Bulldog,” I said quietly. “That would be
stealing and it wouldn’t be right. I’ll
take it, if you please.”
He handed it over
and I thumbed through the cash. I was
holding the staggering sum of ₤650
The old lady was
stunned. “ I must have hidden it years ago in case of a rainy day,” she
said. “I’d quite forgotten.” She pointed to a caddy on the draining board. “Would you like a nice cup of tea?”
For once I decided
to break school rules and accept her offer.
“ Thank you, that would be lovely.”
We drank the tea,
while the boys chattered excitedly about their find. Half an hour later, we had the room
ship-shape and the carpet fitting neatly over the floor-boards.
We left to the
accompaniment of much waving, request for us to visit again and repeated
thanks.
To me, this is story
about the providence of God. There she
was, an old lady, without a bean – not even the wherewithal to pay someone to
relay her carpet.
Suddenly, just when
she needed it, a sum of money appeared out of nowhere. There would be no more worries about the coal
bill … Plenty of cash for the TV license and the weekly shopping. It was like a miracle!
But God’s generosity
extends far beyound the old lady’s pile of notes. He makes us a daily present of hearing,
sight, touch and taste. He gives us
health, warmth, food, friendship and love.
He bestows on us the great gift of life itself.
The writer of Psalm
117 summed it up when he said, “Praise the Lord. For great is His steadfast love towards us.”
Rev. David Bryant
