Paying It Forward
Ok, this is a random "new experience" but it is none-the-less, and I stepped out of my comfort zone intentionally after some prayer. I live downtown and there are a lot of people who are homeless living in the nearby parks, nooks and crannies of the city. It's a part of living downtown in the heart of the city. There is a stigma associated with the homeless, stories that are embedded into your mind from various angles of life, and most people don't even see them in passing or if they do there is a cursory glance and then a quick revert of your eye. The movie "At First Sight" has a great line where Val Kilmer's character notices a homeless man who is asking for assistance and his girlfriend (played by Mira Sorvino) continues to walk and ignores him. Val Kilmer stops and says "wait, don't you see this man right here asking for help" and Mira Sorvino says "yes, well, I guess there are things we choose to not see". Isn't this so true?! We choose to not see what we don't want to see. We choose to believe the worse possible situation in those that frighten us, such as they are where they are for a reason within their control.
Where am I going with all this? Tonight when leaving a class, a woman pulled up in a car that had seen better days and asked me for help. Normally, like most people, I would have assessed the situation (late, dark, and I'm a single female and here is someone who looked and sounded as if she were living in her car) and smiled kindly but informed her I'm sorry I couldn't help and drove off while saying a small prayer asking God to provide her the assistance she really needed. Tonight something different touched my heart that I can't explain. Something seemed sincere in her tears and her story. Something pushed differently on my heart encouraging that I help her; that maybe someone else had prayed and I was the way God was proving her the assistance she needed. I rarely carry cash on me, but happened to have a small amount tonight. After showing me that she had just obtained employment and seeing her little girl in the car (neither of which I asked for), I prayed silently for her and her child and gave her the assistance I could. She thanked me profusely, promising to pay me back when she obtained her first paycheck. I just simply told her that she didn't need to do anything but to pay it forward should she meet someone who needed a helping hand and then I prayed for her.
I don't need to know what she did with it. I don't need to know if she was really in need or not. Sometimes people are placed in our path in the middle of the chapter and not the end... its not for us to understand the how or why or what ifs. It just felt like the right thing to do.
About the Author
_picnik.jpg)
0 comments