Gotta Love It

(Note: I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago and then forgot to post it. But it’s a good story so I wanted to be sure it got shared.)

For the past few weeks, people in our congregation have been passing these cards out around town accompanied by an act of kindness.

Here are just a few examples of things they did:

Bought a grocery store gift card and handed it to the person in line behind them, paid for a stranger’s meal in a restaurant, taped a gas card to a gas pump, mowed a neighbor’s lawn, left a box of detergent in a laundromat, taped a Ziploc baggie full of change to a drink machine, gave a bottle of water to a construction worker, left an extra big tip for a waitress, and put cookies in the mailbox for the mail carrier.  

And the list goes on and on and on.  

People had a great time stepping out of their comfort zones and thinking of  ways they could brighten someone’s day.  In fact, one of the women in the church even emailed me after she had done several things and said, “This is fun, fun, fun!”

Sarah got in on the act, too. On Monday, she gave a Just Because card and a $5 bill to the cafeteria worker at school. Sarah told the woman, “Please give this to the last student who comes through the line at the last lunch.”

At dinner that night, when Sarah told Steve and me what she had done, I was touched that she wanted to do something nice; secretly, however, I was a little cynical about her plan working out. I figured that in the hectic busyness of a High School lunch room with a lunch lady having to keep track of dozens of tasks, how was that card and money going to make its way to its intended recipient? Surely it would get waylaid somewhere along the way.

But I kept my cynicism to myself–I just gave Sarah a hug and told her it was a great thing to do.

Fast forward to Wednesday night.

A new family has moved to our church from Texas. In order to help the family simplify their schedule as they were getting a house ready to move into, we invited their daughter, Emma, to come home with Sarah after school and have dinner with us. Then we would take her to and from Jazz Band practice, have her spend the night, and take her to school in the morning.

As soon as the girls got home, they laid out all their books and launched into their homework.

Nothin’ better than seeing two teenagers hard at work—especially without being told to do it!

After their work was finished and we were sitting at the table eating dinner, our miscellaneous chatter turned to the subject of the Just Because Cards. Steve and I launched into a few of the stories we’d heard about the acts of kindness our church members had been doing.

When Steve and I had run out of tales to tell, Emma said, “Oh yeah. I actually heard another story. This friend of mine was going through the lunch line at school and you’ll never guess what happened! The lunch lady handed her a Just Because Card and $5 and told her it was supposed to go to the last person during the last lunch period. My friend was so amazed and it made her so happy!”

There was a beat of silence after Emma’s pronouncement and then almost as if on cue, Sarah, Steve and I broke out into cheers and applause. Emma looked just a little startled–I don’t really think she was used to her stories getting such a big reaction!

However, when we explained to her the rest of the story, she was just as amazed as we were by the line up of “coincidences.”

The very person who got Sarah’s card just happened to be standing next to the very person who just happened to be at our dinner table when we just happened to be discussing the Just Because cards.

Gotta love it.