My girls and I trekked out to the mall the other day with hopes of finding a tutu for our oldest one's Christmas program; we ended up finding a great deal more.
As we were all walking hand in hand (quite a scene for a thirty, five, and one year-old) amidst the sea of shoppers, the familiar ring of loose change dropping on tile floor stopped us in our tracks. We came face to face with a mom and her grown daughter obviously in a rush to finish up their holiday shopping. Always looking for a teachable moment, I asked M to please help the ladies pick up their change. At this they just glanced our way, walked on, and said something to the likes of, "that's alright, we need to go." Well, for our five year-old this was a Dollar Store treat in the making. Asking for my approval first, she went ahead and picked up the spare change, equaling 55 cents.
At bedtime that night M and I were talking about God's blessings for the day and we both remembered we hadn't shared the story with my husband. Calling him in, M told the story again and made D guess how much money she collected. After we finished, he looked at us and said, "That's weird because I noticed someone today at the store had dropped their change and gave it back to them, and M, guess how much it was?" Of course, 55 cents.
There really are no accidents in life. What you give (or in this case, give back) you will always see again, whether it be your love, your time, or even loose change.
I have made it a habit to try and shop at the most inexpensive grocery stores. Much to my husband's dismay I don't have the time or energy to carouse through weekly fliers or to cut coupons (even if I did cut the coupons with shopping with a one year-old and a five year-old who are we kidding that I have time to study the product to make sure I have the right one to get my 25 cents off, or that that itsy bit of paper is going to make it to the check out in one piece).
Although we do save money on non-name brand products, I have often felt that customer service sometimes leaves something to be desired at these discount chains. Whether it be a store clerk starting to bag the next customer's groceries before I have had a chance to pack all of my bags into our cart to never being offered to have help with my groceries, these are just things I have come to learn go with the territory, that is until a couple of weeks ago. It was a rainy day in our town and thankfully my mother-in-law was still visiting from the Thanksgiving holiday, so the plan was for me to run into the store for our Tuesday Taco Night essentials while she stayed in the car with the girls. I grabbed my umbrella and made a dash through the puddles. As I came upon the entrance, by all outwardly appearances the store looked the same. Massively big doors, carts lined up for miles, and everyone going about their business. However, what came next was more like something out of a dream as compared to my normal shopping experience. First a worker offered me a plastic rain bag for my umbrella. I think I turned around, assuming there was no way she was talking to me. Next, another worker offered me a dry shopping cart, along with a smile. What did I do to deserve the royal treatment?
In a book I read recently the author emphasized that we should remind ourselves we are children of the most high God, and that we do in fact have royal blood flowing through us (no matter where we shop). If we are to notice it and take pride in this fact ourselves, others can't help but notice too.
Maybe the staff at the grocery chain was just in a good mood, but maybe it was something more, I'm betting on the something more.
The night before Thanksgiving always has included a meal out for my family. There is too much cooking to be done the next day for me to even want to step foot in my kitchen, let alone prepare a meal.
Our choice this year was a local grill with typical American fare and even fish aquariums and a kid's game room (perfect for a family with parents in town and a five and one year-old in tow).
As we were waiting on our meals our oldest spotted the game room (and also one of her friend's from gymnastics class) and looked at me with pleading eyes. I dug in my purse and found only dollar bills, but was faithful that maybe the games would take dollar bills. Fortunately there was a dollar to quarter conversion machine in the game room, unfortunately it kept spitting back out my dollar no matter how many different ways I tried to make it wrinkle free.
Finally, giving up on the hope that the machine would want to work with me, M and I went to the cash register counter and asked if we could possibly have some change for a dollar. The waitresses all looked at me and said there was no way they could do that. Our five year-old heard the conversation and looked at me and shrugged.
Having given up on the idea of the game room we turned to go back to our table when one of the young waitresses who had been at the cash register counter pulled us aside and brought out her personal wallet and told us she had change. This was enough of a kindness moment that made me want to look for her angel wings, but as she refused to take the dollar bill I was trading in so my daughter could play an arcade game I knew in that moment I was witnessing an everyday miracle and could feel a prime example of how He wants us to treat each other.
M didn't win the the stuffed animal she was going for that night, but instead came away with a greater prize of witnessing a real life example of how to love one another.
