Sometimes you just gotta' have faith!

I was in down-town the other day running a few personal errands and had made my last stop before heading home. Walking through the parking lot back to my car, I saw a young woman, probably in her teens standing nearby. She seemed to be looking at me and I could tell she wanted to talk to me, but she seemed hesitant. Not wanting to stare, I averted my gaze and continued to my car whereas I heard a nervous voice call out–”sir … can you help me?”

Turning, I saw this young lady approaching, and sadly my first thought was that of suspicion. What did she want? Could this a robbery? Was there someone hiding nearby to help her?  In retrospect, I couldn’t help having those thoughts, and I’m sure most would have the same seeing the world we live in these days. I pushed those feeling out (just a little) and asked her what the problem was. She kept her gaze down as she spoke softly saying, “my mom is across the street at the medical clinic. She left her pocket book home and we don’t have enough gas in the car to get home. Can you spare some change?”

Okay… at first I thought to myself, yeah.. right. I’ve heard this similar line before. I was about to tell her no when she looked up and I could see her eyes welling up with tears. They say the secret to a person’s heart is in their eyes, and these eyes to me were telling the truth. I felt bad about my prior cynicism and mistrust. I pulled out the few dollars I had on me and gave it to her. In a quiet voice she said “thank you sir–God bless you;” turned and headed off.

As I got back in my car, I thought to myself, sometimes you just gotta have faith; faith in the reality that there are some moments in time when the harsh reality of this troubled world is not tugging at your coat-tails all of the time.