Monday, April 30, 2012

The kindness of strangers....

On Sunday the pastor taught on grace, using the story of Mephibosheth from the bible. It is a story where David, who is king, grants a place at his table to the grandson of the man who tried to kill him. It showed how this king who had all the power, granted kindness to someone when he did not need to. As I sat there I thought about grace. I know about the grace of God and how he has saved me, but what amazes me even more is the grace that He pours out on me that allows me to be kind to people. It gives me the ability to love those who are unloveable, or better yet to love people I am unloveable. To see that kindness is a better action than anything else I can do. I had to go to the grocery store on Sunday and it was pretty busy. I had finally filled up my cart and was standing in line waiting to put all my stuff on the conveyor. As I stood there I noticed a lady behind me who had one of those small baskets filled with food. I wondered why she was in the line behind me and not in the express check out. My first thought was to just go ahead and get all my groceries on the conveyor, you see she had the option to go into the express line and get checked out quicker, as where I could only stay in the line where everyone had a cart full of groceries. It also brought back a memory of another time, when there was a woman who in the exact same situation asked if she could go in front of me. What was I to say? NO. She had a couple of things in her little basket while I had a cart full of food. She though, could have gone to the express check out, but the three people in that line was just too much for her I guess. So of course I let her go, I did not want to appear to be unkind. Then the lady goes ahead and does not even say thank you. Ugh. That incident alone bothered me for hours. What am I talking about, it still bothers me. So here I am again, remembering that day where someone presumed on my kindness and did not even say thanks. As I stood there though, I thought that today was somewhat different. Instead of someone presuming on my kindness, I was in the position to give it. That made a whole lot of difference for me. So as I started to load my groceries on the conveyor, I asked the lady if she would like to go ahead of me. She asked if I was sure, and it was then that I noticed that she was pregnant. "Of course", I told her, as I made some room for her to put her load down. I hoped she could not see my expression as I was somewhat embarrassed that I even delayed in asking her to go ahead of me. That is the grace that I like, the type that so overflows from what God gives to me that I can extend it to others. Where I don't have to worry about anything other than being what I want to be, kind. It may not sound like much, but for me, it is everything.