It was March 5, 2008 and if you care to check my older posts you will find an entry for this day. Apparently I needed to learn how to accept a blessing from perfect strangers! I was so used to being the "bless-er" I hardly knew what to do with the gift I was being offered.
In summery, a group of young people crowded me in the super market parking lot, so close I couldn't open my car door. They were waving a $5.00 bill at me they wanted me to have. I did not need the money and wanted them to give it to someone in need but they had other ideas and, long story short, I accepted the money from them.
Realizing how this random act of kindness affected me, I carefully folded the money tucking it into my wallet so it would be visible every time I opened it. Often I looked for just the right opportunity to pay this gift forward but never seemed to find just the right person or the right time. That is, until today!
We were traveling home today from visiting family for a few days. Our trip started off on shaky ground with snow and ice covered roads and blowing snow reducing visibility considerably. After the first two hours of a rather quiet ride I realized that my husband who was driving was not feeling very well. We stopped for fuel and I took the wheel even though I had a sore scratchy eye that was not responding at all to my really amazing new eye drops!! Four hours later I stopped at Tim Horton's for a sandwhich and coffee. As I was ordering my food and coffee a young woman interrupted and said "I would really like to pay for your food today. Please let me." Naturally I started with the protests to which she replied "I'm really quite stubborn and I just want to do this for you. Please allow me to buy your food today." Finally I agreed, asked her if I could give her a hug of thanks, hugged her and moved to pick up my coffee and wait for my sandwich. Instead of leaving she followed me, asking how my day was going! A few sentences later I discovered she was a student at a Bible College near by. Now I felt bad about allowing her to pay but at the same time I realized she wouldn't have offered if she was spending her last penny. After she left to join her friend at their table my husband told me an older man wanted to buy coffee for him, but since he wasn't feeling well he wasn't having any coffee! Sheesh! What a day this was turning into. I had already won a free coffee in the morning after rolling up the rim!! We were being blessed all over the place!
That's when this little voice said "Give her the $5.00!" and I just knew the time was right. I decided to risk offending my new friend and marched over to her table where I realized she was telling her friend about our initial meeting a few minutes prior. I explained the $5.00 bill in my wallet and asked her to do with it whatever she felt was right. She could spend it on herself or bless someone else with it and that it was simply my joy to know this was the right time and she was the person God had chosen for me to hand it to. It was just that simple. She could not say no and she realized that this was orchestrated by God Himself and neither of us had any idea at that moment how this money is going to be used in the future! It was an exciting moment for both of us and even though I will probably never know how this little $5 bill will affect the next person's life I know that when my new friend Alexis pays it forward it will be another perfect moment in time, directed by the God who brought us together today!
2 comments:
I got all teary and I could hardly finish reading! That's awesome Mom that you kept the $5 all this time and now it can go on and bless someone else. I love Pay-it-forward stuff!
Nice work. I came across your blog while “blog surfing” using the Next Blog button on the blue Nav Bar located at the top of my blogger.com site. I frequently just travel around looking for other blogs which exist on the Internet, and the various, creative ways in which people express themselves. Thanks for sharing.
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