STORY SATURDAY
Missing Carrots
Life Always Has a Plan For You Different Than Yours
It was one of the lovely, sunny days in the city, and that day, the city was more crowded than other days.
A middle-aged man walking on the street passing near the biggest church in the city wanted to stop an old man with white hair.
He wanted to ask where the marketplace was.
For the first time, he had come to this city to visit a friend.
He was staying at his friend’s house, and they had planned to cook dinner together, but for the recipe he wanted to cook, carrots were missing at home. And the best carrots were being sold in the marketplace.
Before his friend came home from work, he needed to be home, but he had wasted a lot of time exploring the city.
At first glance, the old man he wanted to stop had seemed to him like an ordinary old man walking down the street.
But soon, he remembered that this old man was one of the saints he had seen in the church the previous Sunday, where he had gone at his friend’s invitation.
For a very long time, he was curious about religions and the lives of the saints.
In fact, he was in search of the meaning of life after having difficult experiences in the past...
He had read several books related to these subjects, but still, he had several questions in his head. And he wanted to find someone to talk to, to discuss all these things in his head with them, for a very long time.
And now, this person was standing in front of him.
So, he approached the old man, greeted him, and kissed his hands.
The saint was very surprised, since in his usual daily clothes, he had not thought anyone would recognize who he was.
The man introduced himself and told him that he had seen the old man last Sunday. Due to the crowd in the church, he hadn’t even thought of talking to the saint on that day.
He had read many stories about the lives of the saints in books. But this was the first time that he talked to a real saint face to face. So, he invited the saint to drink a cup of coffee nearby.
He was lucky because the saint was a very humble and sincere person, and he had time to have a cup of coffee with this gentleman.
In fact, the saint always had time for everyone.
The coffee shop was very old and small, and there were old big trees nearby. They sat in front of the coffee shop and talked a bit about how beautiful the city was at that time.
Their coffees had arrived, and the man wanted to ask what the difference between a saint’s life and that of an ordinary person was.
“Sir,”
he said,
“…with your permission, I would like to ask a question. What is the difference between a normal, ordinary person living his daily life and a saint?”
He was expecting that the saint would tell him about things that only saints can do and that ordinary people cannot.
The saint smiled and answered.
“My child,”
he said…
He was always calling people younger than him “My child” especially if he was asked questions.
“…a person who lives his daily life gets up in the morning and lists the things to do. He says,
‘Today I will buy these, I will go to these places, I will visit these people.’
When the saint gets up, he first thanks his Lord for bringing him to this beautiful day. Then he says,
‘Let’s see what God Almighty will show me today, what will I witness and who will I see?’
If you pay attention, in the first one, what comes to the fore is the person’s self and ego. “I,” he says, “will see this and that, I will do this and that.”
On the other hand, what is seen in the saintly person is a complete submission. A sweet, warm, soft surrender. A beautiful surrender.
“I wonder who my Lord will show me today and make me talk to.
What kind of words, what kind of events will I witness?’”
This time, it was the man’s turn to be surprised.
Was it so easy to be a saint? …
As he prepared his next question to ask, his cell phone rang…
His friend had returned home from work and was wondering where he was.
He, on the other hand, had completely forgotten the reason he was out.
He needed to buy carrots for dinner before returning home, but life had prepared a very different plan for him.
For the first time in his life, he had found someone to ask the questions in his head. But he could not sit there any longer with the saint.
First, he apologized to his friend for being late, and then, as soon as he finished his phone call with his friend, he apologized to the saint for leaving early.
He wanted to stay longer and talk with the saint but unfortunately, he had plans with his friend, who was waiting for him to cook at home.
He immediately showed the money and paid the bill to the waitress.
And, with his new questions in his head, he ran to his friend’s house without buying the carrots he needed.
Before going home, he also had to pick up his sports shoes that were in repair. He picked up them and changed his shoes. Now, he could run faster…
However, on the way home, he was in such a hurry that he did not realize that he had even passed a countryman selling carrots just a few steps away…
The carrots were seeing him, but he could not see the carrots… the missing carrots at home…
Lessons from this story:
- “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.”
- Allen Saunders
2. “People only see what they are prepared to see.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
3. “Everyone is trying to accomplish something big, not realizing that life is made up of little things.”
- Frank A. Clark
P.S. I have written this story inspired by a saint story in Sufism, considering that saints have similar attributes in every religion.
With Love🙏🏻
