The Little Fisher Boy Who Loved Jesus--and Shared His Fish

 As Jonathan and I were walking back to our Honda from spending an hour roaming slowly around Canyon Lake Park after my last chemo treatment, we noticed a young boy fishing right here at this picnic table that I'd noticed earlier.

Now I am not quite like Corrie ten Boom who felt she should witness to everyone she came into contact with, although I try to pay attention to times when God might want me to speak to someone about the Lord. But at this moment of seeing this little boy, it popped right into my mind to ask him if he knew about Jesus, the Fisher of Men.

Sometimes I'll see someone and wish I could say something, but I won't know what to say. This time, what to say popped right into my mind, and when we arrived at the van, I told Jonathan what I was thinking and feeling, and we strolled right back over that direction to do exactly what had popped into my head.  

Earlier, I had been feeding cracker crumbs to geese and this eager duck, but this time, I asked the boy if he liked to fish. He sure did, and then I asked him if he knew Jesus, the Fisher of men. He said yes. We asked if he heard stories about Jesus in Sunday School, and he said not Sunday School, but he goes to church. He was busy putting a wad of bread on his fish hook, but I pursued with one more question. 

"Do you love Jesus?" I asked, and he readily said yes. Then we watched him toss his hook into the water.

 

What happened next was a big surprise! Within seconds, that boy had a large fish on his line, and he was reeling it into shore. Our eyes about popped out of our heads. It was a beautiful rainbow trout!

"Is your mom going to fry that for supper?" I asked. 

No. 

"Is your dad?" I asked, "or grandma?" I had to try to remember that many little boys nowadays don't have a mom--or a dad--or much of anyone. He was there all by himself. Who did he have to fry a fish for him?

"No," he said, pulling the fish up on the ground, and getting ready to yank the hook out of its mouth. I felt so sorry for that fish. "I just release it again," the boy said, while I ached to think of that fish with a torn mouth just getting tossed back into the water.

"Would you mind if we took it home and fried it for our supper?" I ventured. This was perfectly acceptable to him, and I explained that we lived a couple hours away and I had just gotten chemo for cancer today, and that we were enjoying this walk in the park and how delighted we would be to have fried fish for supper. 

Jonathan put the fish out of its pain and cleaned it and we took it home to the RV where our friends the Woodards are letting us stay. The skillet there was too small for such a large fish, so Nicki Woodard was willing for us to come to her kitchen to fry the fish and visit. Jonathan stood at the stove for about 20 minutes, carefully frying that beautiful fish. It was enough for his entire supper with some for me, too, and enough left over for breakfast in the morning!

And that is the story of how a little fisher boy at Canyon Lake Park blessed Jonathan and me with a delicious fish for dinner and breakfast!

"Always love Jesus!" Jonathan called to the boy as we bade him goodbye and went off with our fish. 

May each of us always love Jesus.