The Fish Lady

Life is unpredictable.  No one can predict when you will meet someone or have an experience which permanently changes your life.  I can testify God is a Master of using my failures to reveal the depravity in my own heart, spurning me to repentance and transformation by His grace.

If I asked "Who had the biggest impact upon your life?" I would receive a plethora of answers.  One of the people who changed my life I have never seen since.  I never even learned her name.  I affectionately call her, "The Fish Lady."  Let me lay the groundwork by admitting that when I was a child, youth, and even into adulthood, I was very frugal (selfish even!) with money.  I didn't receive a weekly allowance but could earn money through mowing the lawn, washing the cars, or other household chores - and it wasn't much.  I remember mowing lawns for two years to save up $205 to buy a GT Performer freestyle bike.  My first real job was at McDonald's, "raking" in a mere $4.25 an hour.  When I earned money, apart from a tithe to God it was mine.  I would immediately convert price tags into hours of work.  A music compact disc was three to four hours of work!  Maybe I didn't need that CD after all.

One day early in adulthood I went with some friends on a 3/4 day fishing trip.  It wasn't cheap, but it was the best day of fishing I ever had on the water.  I caught three small yellowtail tuna and at least eight large barracuda.  My stomach was bruised from the rod pressing against it!  After each fish was landed, my number was stapled on the side of the fish and put in the well.  Since my dad taught me how to clean fish, I didn't want to pay the deckhand three bucks to filet each fish for me - almost a day's wages!  Besides, I had watched the deckhands before and judged them wasteful in their great haste to clean the fish before we returned to the dock.  After we reached the pier, a large plastic crate on wheels was pushed out and the fish placed in piles.

As I recounted the great day fishing, I looked at my fish piling up on the pier.  All the sudden, a cackling old lady began to dance around my fish, gawking like a lunatic!  She waved an old plastic bag around as she loped around like Quasimodo, repeating over and over in broken English, "Nice fish!  Nice fish!"  Hey, I thought to myself.  Back off from my fish.  I paid for my trip, caught each one, and had the sore body to prove it.  Then she did the unthinkable:  she started picking up one of my fish to shove into her bag!  How rude, thoughtless, and just plain wrong was this old hag.  Annoyed I said, "What are you doing?  Get away from my fish!  Leave them alone!  I didn't say you could have any of them!"  Startled and looking a bit confused, the old woman walked away in silence.  Me and my mates shrugged our shoulders.  "Crazy old lady - what was all that about?"  I justified my actions at the time, but how I handled the situation was eating me inside.

Looking back on it now, I wonder if the Fish Lady was not an angel disguised as an aged woman of Asian descent.  God used her to teach me more than she could ever know.  Even before I arrived at home with my great catch, my conscience smote me.  You're a Christian, I thought to myself.  I have freely received and I am called to freely give.  How many times had I gone fishing and not caught anything?  That catch was a blessing from God and I hoarded it all for myself.  I was embarrassed.  Do I really need this many fish?  Would my freezer even hold it all?  What if the woman or her family was starving?  The whole situation bothered me to the point that I wished I had given my whole catch away.  The joy of giving generously would have been better than the gnaw of guilt I experienced.  What a missed opportunity to give and in so doing glorify God.  What did I have that God had not richly provided?  I wished I had never seen that Fish Lady!

God is the divine alchemist:  He takes our shocking failures and uses them to be life-transforming moments for good!  As I mused upon the situation, I decided from that moment on to err on the side of generosity - which is never an error.  Is not God able to abundantly supply our needs from the rich stores of His grace?  I have learned by experience when I hold onto things because of selfishness, the root of the issue is I am not trusting God to uphold His Word.  This is akin to blasphemy.  How foolish it is to trust my grip and meagre resources rather than the God who saved my soul from Hell and has provided all things for me to enjoy.  It is only after we committed our money, possessions, and life to God that He entrusts to us the true riches.  Matthew 6:33 affirms, "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."

I love you, Fish Lady.  I'm very sorry that I learned life lessons at your expense, but I'm so glad I did!