Random Acts of Kindness

Tonight, sleep won't come. It always happens this time of year. I have two weeks left until I go back to school. Two weeks. My mind races with all that I still have to accomplish in the next two weeks. My mind races with all that I hope for this school year. My mind races with thoughts of new little strangers who will soon become my friends.

Well, that is how it usually is. Tonight my mind is a thousand miles away.

When we were still living in Southbridge (see ... I told you it was a thousand miles away ... maybe I should have also said it was a decade ago, too!), my dad was all set to preach one Sunday when he started to not feel well. He was rushed to the local hospital. By the time we got there, plans were being made to transport him to a bigger hospital in a bigger town.

And, tonight I am remembering what I was feeling in those moments. Dean was with Torrey. And he was the only person I wanted to talk to in those moments of rising panic. He was the only person I needed to talk to in those moments of rising panic.

I was living in a time before cell phones. My only option was the hospital pay phone. And, I did not have a quarter to make the call. As I was digging looking for a quarter, some stranger placed one in my hand.

And, tonight I was trying to remember if that person was a man or a woman. I cannot remember. I just remember thanking them profusely for a random act of kindness to a stranger.

Did they know how much that quarter meant to me? Did they know how they helped to ease my heart in that moment? Or, was it done and for them forgotten?

And, tonight I can't forget. I have actually thought of that moment often over the years. Wondering what I would have done had the shoe been on the other foot. Wondering if I have shown kindness to someone in the moment they needed it most. Wondering if I would have even realized there was a need right before me.

My dad, by the way, is fine today. He was fine then. Tests were run and whatever was seen in the beginning was healed. Not a surprise to us ... just a surprise to the doctors. He heads off this week to Cameroon on another mission trip ... how different this world would have been had that day ended differently.

And, so tonight I can't sleep. The start of a new school year is soon. Um, I am not finished beating myself up over last year. I have asked myself many times did I love enough? Did I love too much? If only ...? Why didn't I ...? Did the ones I was called to love know that I loved Him first and foremost? When they are my age will they look back on last year and think, "She loved me. She loved Jesus." ....

And, so tonight I sit up in the wee hours of the morning thinking of a stranger who was kind to me with out knowing me. Was kind to me just because. Wondering if I would have done the same for a stranger. Wondering if I would have done the same for someone I knew, someone I loved. Wondering if in the moment that someone needed it most was I too busy to know that God was prodding me to act. Wondering if in that moment that God was prodding me to act was I too wrapped up in myself or my world that I missed it. Wondering.