Grace and Kindness
My husband and I have gone through some tough times together, and four years ago we were at the lowest we’d ever been. When the housing bubble burst and the recession hit hard, we had to give up the house we had worked so hard to buy. It was our pride and joy and we were devastated so we decided to move to a new city and start fresh.
By the time Christmas came, we had been in our new place for just under a year and we were still struggling. I was an emotional mess, was only working part-time, and had taken fewer and fewer clients in my small consulting business. I had saved up enough money to buy a nice Christmas dinner for us plus some other groceries for the week, and that was a huge deal since we’d taken to visiting the food pantry when we had no other choice. So we shopped carefully to stay within our budget and when we got to the register, our card was declined. I’d done the math wrong and tried putting a few items back but the card would just not work (I found out later that we were charged erroneous fees and our account was negative). All of the groceries I had so carefully planned out had to be put back and I had no idea what we were going to do for food. I tried hard not to cry but I had just had enough. We started to leave, embarrassed and broken-hearted and we must have looked pathetic. The woman behind us in line spoke up and said “Where are you two going? Your groceries are all right here!” I told her there was a mix-up with our accounts and she saw right through it. She said, “No – I don’t think so – it works just fine.” And just like that she paid for our groceries with her own credit card. Even my husband cried. We hugged her and she said “Stand up straight – we’ve all been there. Just remember to do the same for someone else whenever you’re able.”
I’ve always tried to give a little extra here and there, like buying a meal or two at the grocery store to be donated to needy families during the holidays but this changed me. The effects reached far deeper than just dinner that night. I learned first-hand how an act of kindness can change someone’s perception of the world when all they’ve known for so long is losing in a hard-fought battle of life.
THANK YOU SHANNON, WHEREVER YOU ARE!