One time, I Almost Hit a Car

Philippians 4:4 "Rejoice in the Lord always; I will say it again:  Rejoice!"

And by "one time" I mean today. Yes, today, I almost hit a car.  Well, truck, to be exact.  Are you wondering why the "rejoice" verse is above this? Well, let me tell the story.

So, I was out and about today running errands.  I feel like I can be honest with you, blog, and admit it was the first time I had taken a shower in two days and I was enjoying looking like a real human while I was out in the world.  After running by Hubs office, I parked and headed in to the video store to return a disc of Mad Men that I had rented over the weekend.  (Side note, the end of season 2 is such a cliff hanger!!  I may have to take a disc with me for Thanksgiving.  Not sure I can wait.)  I parked in a garage downtown, popped in to return the disc, and skipped back out again.

As I was entering my car, there was a mysterious-looking man in the garage.  He looked homeless and was holding some fliers or papers or something.  He tried to flag me down.  Now, I know we are supposed to be giving and friendly as followers of Christ, but as a woman in this day and age, I get a little nervous when a man approaches my car.  I want to be helpful but I also get somewhat scared that the guy asking me to roll down my window wants more than a high five.  So, in my nervousness, I sped out of the garage and straight into the street--only to jolt to a stop when I realized there was a car driving by me at that exact moment.  Luckily we both stopped at the same time and the would-be crash never occurred.  Pretending this unsuspecting man could hear me, I threw my hands up in apology and mimed "I'm SO sorry!!"

Here's the kicker:  the man smiled, waved, and drove off.

I don't know about you, but this took me completely off guard.  Had it been me, I would have been so mad at the myself.  Mad that someone interrupted my day, almost ran into me, and even mad that the perpetrator looked so apologetic.  But this man didn't seem mad:  he seemed joyful.  Downright happy.  The smile wasn't a smile of pity like, "Oh you idiot. Oh well, I'll let you slide." This was a sincerely happy smile.

I have no idea what this man's day was like.  I have no idea if he is a Christian.  I pray he is.  I hope his day had been lovely up until that point and that he was just flying so high with God that my little sudden stop didn't bother him.  But I also know it's very possible that man could have been having an awful day, could be in the middle of a family crisis, or could have something terrible going on in his life.  Either way, he chose to smile.

He has no idea what that little act of grace meant to me, but it made my day.  He was rejoicing in the middle of something that could have been pretty terrible.  And now I am rejoicing, too.

I promise not to be this heavy on the blog all the time, but I had to share this small act worthy of rejoicing over on my blog.

Here's to kindness!