Gospel of Matthew, chapter 11:28

One day an elderly man entered a hospital. He was grumpy from being on medication and the nurses thought him to be insane, as he yelled for his wife to get the apple basket. By the time they had checked him into his room the nurses were exhausted.

“Sir you have to calm down; we are doing everything we can for you” they would try to explain.

“I don’t need your help” the grumpy old man would yell “I want my basket.” He finally went to sleep. The nurses sighed with relief and talked among themselves whether they should call the hospital psychologist about the old man and his obsession with the apple basket.

As they talked and laughed about the situation the wife came in carrying a basket of apples. The nurses were stunned as she asked if she could see her husband and deliver his basket. “Sure,” they said, as they watched her slip past into his room

Curiosity consumed the nurses for the next few weeks as they tended to the elderly man. He was eaten with cancer and the doctors had given him no hope of survival. He turned out to be a very calm, happy man once he had his basket. His wife, they noticed, would come in with apples and go out with apples and the curiosity of the nurses grew even more.

One night as the old man was nearing the end, a nurse sat down in a chair beside him: “May I ask why you have that apple basket? I just don’t get it.”

“I am an apple farmer by trade,” he sighed. “From the time I was twenty until the day I die I will forever have my apples.” The nurse nodded, thinking she understood.

As she started to leave, the old man asked her to sit down again: “At the age of twenty I accepted Jesus as my Savior. The day I accepted Jesus I got this basket, and each time I had a problem or concern that I couldn’t handle, I put an apple in the basket un-shined.”

“Why?” The nurse said shaking her head.

“Because it reminded me to hand over my burdens to the Lord for him to shine. See my basket now,” he said. “As my burdens disappear so do the apples. As I get a new burden I put a new apple into the basket.”

The humble nurse looked into the basket…only one apple was there.

With that, he took a big breath and grabbed by the hand his wife who sitting there and faded into eternity. The wife paused for a moment and got up from her seat to take from the basket the last remaining apple. She whispered in his ear that his reward awaits him in heaven.

The nurse stood still with tears in her eyes: “what do you think his reward will be?

“The biggest apple pie you can imagine” she said, “eternal life with Jesus, His savior.”

From that day on the nurse always had a basket by her bed. – Author Unknown

Offered by Jade Viray

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