Recently I was at the grocery store checking out. I realized I needed to go to the restroom and asked the checkout person if I could leave my cart there and go when she was all finished.
A lot of the checkout people there recognize me but I didn’t know this one, who looked rather young and new. She said “No, you can’t leave it here – you have to take it all the way down to Customer Service”. But then the person bagging my groceries, who did know me, said “Leave it right here – I’ll watch it until you get back”.
Because of Crohn’s I live with the anxiety that I might not make it to the restroom in time and so I try to get there as quickly as possible. I really appreciated the small kindness (from someone who didn’t know I had Crohn’s) that saved me the time of having to leave my cart in another place.
It’s amazing how much those small things can mean.
Helen – These little acts sometimes make or break our day. These certainly go a long ways in revealing the heart. A good reminder for us all.
Thanks Glenn!
I wish we didn’t live in a world of selfishness and suspicion. But I guess that makes little acts of kindness stand out all the more. A friend who’s a Franciscan monk encouraged me to pray this prayer (which I’ve paraphrased) “God, help me to be of service to You, to my fellow beings, and to the evolution of my soul.” The more I pray it, the more I realize how many opportunities there are each day to practice it, even in small ways that no one will ever know about except me, like letting go of resentment about an issue. I like the idea that the focus is on service rather than something nebulous like “love”. So often the focus of “love” is on what I feel. But the focus of service is on what is done for the other.
Hearing stories of acts of kindness are so encouraging. Thanks for sharing it.