Preacher - Teacher

This weekend I had a great need for recovery, that blog will be written later.  Saturday was pretty much a bust, but on Sunday I was slowly feeling human again.  I woke and as usual I turned on the TV.  I don't really watch anything and leave it at whatever channel is on.  I make my morning cup of coffee and just sit, listening to the TV somewhat, while slowly waking.

On this particular Sunday Joel Osteen, the Christian Preacher from Texas was on.  I am not an avid viewer but there have been times when I watched his service.  He has charisma and he tells his stories, many of which he has 'heard'.  I watched and somewhere in the middle of the show I really listened, he was telling the story of the Paid in full with milk.  I have heard this story through the years always varying as stories tend to do.  But the length of the story and the falseness just left me awed.  The main reason was because here is this preacher who is teaching his flock.  Who is using stories to show them the way to Christianity, to becoming, remaining as a good human being.  Yet, his stories ring few bells of truth.  Now some actually do, but others are just out right lies.  That he doesn't check the validity of the stories is just incredible.  That we have come to a point where we must embellish an already good story speaks volume of our lack of faith in one another. We must make a story extraordinarily unreal and sad in order to believe it.

The parts in red are the embellishment, the parts in black the truth, the parts in blue never mentioned.

One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry.

A young medical student who enjoyed hiking went on such a hike, not wanting to turn back he stopped at a farmhouse for some water.  There a young girl was outside the farm.

He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door.

Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water! . She thought he looked hungry so brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it so slowly, and then asked, How much do I owe you?"

You don't owe me anything," she replied. "Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness."

They chatted for a while and he went on his way to continue his hike.

He said ... "Then I thank you from my heart."

As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and man was strong also. He had been ready to give up and quit.

Many year's later that same young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease.  went to the clinic where Dr. Kelly worked as a Dr.  (No mention anywhere of disease, near death or anything like it)

Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes.

Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to her room.

Dressed in his doctor's gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once.

He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day he gave special attention to her case.

After a long struggle, the battle was won.

Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. was well known for his charity and every few patients he would forgo billing them.  He looked at it, (on her bill) then wrote something on the edge, and the bill was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally she looked, and something caught her attention on the side of the bill. She read these words ...

"Paid in full with one glass of milk"

He was never poor.  He did 'save' her.  She did not go to any special place and he did not give special attention.  He merely did what he normally did, only this time, he knew the girl and wrote the line.

If you look at only the black in this story, the actual event, it is worthy enough.  Dr. Kelly was a devout Christian, a charitable man, he was one of the founding fathers of the John Hopkins clinic.  That he remembered a patient and wrote that line was sweet, but he did this often.  And, more importantly she was not so sick, dying or any of the above red.  He was not hungry, broke or despaired.  

An autobiographer who was his friend for many years wrote of the above (the actual story) from a paragraph in his diary, a small one that mentioned that girl, the hike, the water, milk, operation and bill.  

It is fascinating and frightening to see what that story has become and that a preacher would tell it.

It would have been so much better to tell the actual story and remind his flock that kindness can be repaid years later and many times in between, without turning it into an embellished sob story.

How I hope Preachers remember that they are teachers and so their material should be researched, confirmed and applicable.