An act of kindness

A man was driving home one evening on a small country road. Work in this small Midwestern community was almost as slow as his beat-up Pontiac, but he never quit looking for a job. Ever since his factory had closed down, he had been unemployed. And with winter coming, he had reached a point of practical desperation.
It was dark, and he almost didn’t see the old lady stranded on the side of the road. But even in the dim light of day, he could see she needed help. So he pulled up in front of her Mercedes and got out. His Pontiac sputtered as he walked up to her, and he noticed that she seemed very worried. No one had stopped to help her for the last hour or so. She was wondering: “is he going to hurt me? He doesn’t look safe; he looks poor and hungry. This does not look good”. He sensed that she was frightened, standing out there alone in the cold, so he offered her some reassurance: “Ma’am, I’m just here to help you. Why don’t you wait in the car where it’s warm, and I’ll see if I can fix your car? By the way, my name is Joe”.
All she had was a flat tire, but for an old lady, that was bad enough. Joe crawled under the car, looking for a place to put the jack. He cut his hands on the hard rocks underneath the axle but was soon able to change the tire. As he was tightening up the lug nuts, she rolled down her window and began to talk to him. She told him that she was from St. Louis and was just passing through. She could not thank him enough for coming to her aid. He just smiled as he closed her trunk and started returning to his car.
“Tell me, how much do I owe you?” she asked. “I’ll be glad to pay anything you ask.”
To her surprise, Joe looked back at her and said, “If you really want to pay me back, the next time you see someone who needs help, you give them the help they need, and then—just think of me”. He waited until she started her car and drove off. It had been a cold and depressing day, but he felt good as he headed home in the twilight.
A few miles down the road, this same lady saw a small café. She went in to grab a bite to eat and take the chill off before she made the last leg of her trip home. It was a dingy-looking restaurant. One could tell business was not going well. Nevertheless, the waitress came over and brought a towel for her to wipe her wet hair. She wore a sweet smile, and even though the lady could tell the waitress was extremely tired, she was eager to please. She also noticed the waitress was nearly eight months pregnant, but neither the strain of the pregnancy nor the labor of the work was struggling just to make ends meet. She wondered how someone with so little could be so giving to a stranger. Then she thought of Joe.
After the lady finished her meal, the waitress went to get her change from a $100 bill, but the lady slipped out the door. She was gone by the time the waitress came back. The waitress wondered where the lady had gone. Then she noticed something written on a napkin, in the shape of a poem. It brought tears to her eyes. It said:
You don’t owe me a thing,
I’ve been there too;
Someone once helped me out the way I’m helping you.
If you really want to pay me back,
Here’s what you do;
Don’t let the chain of Kindness
End with you.
The waitress finally made it to the end of the day. Later that night, when she got home from work and climbed into bed, she thought about the money and what the lady had written. How could the woman have known how much she and her husband needed it? With this baby coming next month, it was going to be extremely difficult, especially with her husband out of work. As she lay down in bed, she gave him a soft kiss and whispered, “Everything is going to be all right. I love you, Joe.”
Take every opportunity to be kind. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”
PLEASE take note that your act of kindness might not end up like this. As a matter of fact it may even be quite far from this BUT “You’ll reap if you faint not” ~Gal 6:9~