Sweet Tomatoes

I found this story at www.ordinaryattempts.org. It is a great website which relates ordinary attempts in our every day lives to present the love of Christ to others.

Red Tomatoes

08.27.2007 /

A sweet lady I know worked at our office for 41 years before she retired, although I have only known her for 17 of those years. She is a strong, vibrant little lady with a lot spunk and curly, silver hair. I always got along well with her, and was secretary of her department for several years before she retired.

When I was notified by another co-worker that she had had a heart attack, I didn’t hesitate to ask where I could go and visit her and my friend arranged with me to go during our lunch to visit her at a local hospital. She was scheduled to have an angioplasty and if that didn’t go well, she would have to have open heart surgery.

We arrived at the hospital where they were so over-crowded that they didn’t have a room for her. They had her in a temporary holding area, and she lay there with IVs and various monitoring lines attached to her. In order to get to her bedside I had to step over about half a dozen electrical cords just to get to her side. Then, I grabbed her hand and asked her how she was doing.

The first thing that I noticed was how scared she was. In all the time I’d known her, I had never really seen any fear, but it was very present on that day. We chatted for a while as she outlined what was coming that afternoon. I finally got up the courage to ask if she would like me to pray with her. As soon as I said it, I was sure that I had done the right thing because she gratefully asked me to do so. I said the best prayer that I could while holding her hand and then wished her well, and that afternoon she came through the angioplasty just fine. She suffered a setback later that week, and I had our prayer group meet twice to pray for her. More people came than have ever come to our prayer group.

A week ago, the door to our offices suddenly opened and in walked a somewhat tired and slightly more feeble familiar face, but a welcome one all the same. She wasn’t quite restored to her former self, but she was certainly better than the last time I had seen her. She stepped forward and offered me a clear plastic bag full of homegrown, beautiful, red tomatoes. As she did so, she explained that it was her way to show her thanks for the prayers and the visit in the hospital. She told me how much she appreciated it.

I hugged her and thanked her over and over for the wonderful gift, and later wondered if it was my imagination or had those really been the sweetest tomatoes that I had ever tasted?