The Benefactress

The Benefactress

Or

How To Tell If You Are Old

Vacation was so great and so restful that I climbed aboard the plane for home, happy and energized and without pain.   I am young again!

Upon arriving home, duties and fatigue set in.

My shoulders were aching in spite of having checked my only bag and having jettisoned my carry-on so I could be as free as a bird.
                                                            

                                                                                                                   (Gif Shortener) giphy.com

On land again, reality set in.
The fridge was empty.  Tired or not, I needed to shop.
  

Old age did not totally reappear until I was checking out at Walmart.
I could not find my debit card, having unwittingly left it behind at the gas station.
Dang it.
.  

The line of people behind me at the check-out was getting longer and longer and noodle-like with their bland stares and limp stances.

Yet the woman right behind me in line was a happy camper.
About 35 or so, she was smiling kindly as she watched me fumble.
. 

"I have a goal that I started this year", she said to me.

If she hadn't been so filled with light and bright and good will, I might have said acidly, "Good For You!".
Instead I, being goal oriented myself, said, "Oh."

"Yes", she said.  "My goal is to buy groceries for people."   I looked at her.
Is she rich?                          
If she is rich  what is she doing at Walmart?

"Well, good luck with that goal, " and I turned back to my own dilemma, this time accidently spilling the contents of my purse on the floor and having to bend down to retrieve everything,   

I was old.
I was pathetic.

This woman behind me said with deep respect,
"Wouldn't it be great if somebody paid for all your groceries and you never had to pay for them yourself ever again?"

I just looked up at her kind and smiling face.  I don't multi-task very well anymore but a thought of "that's heaven" flitted through my brain.
But I was busy looking for change to pay for the Arrowhead bottle of water I had half finished.


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A hasty plan was made with the surely new cashier, that my groceries would be "suspended" and held for me to return with my debit card.  

I started walking away without my cart of groceries and the bright young woman ran after me.

 "I'm paying for your groceries so you need to come back and take them."

I started to protest, even argue and she shushed me.
"This would bring so much pleasure to me, how can you deny me?"

So I was lead back to receive my cart by a smiling young woman.
"To whom do I say thank you?" I asked.
She extended her hand for me to shake. "Jen".
"Thank you, Jen."

I walked away,  a person of worth.

When I unloaded my groceries into my car and climbed in, there was my debit card on the seat.

I started to cry.
The tears clued me in that God  had visited me with an earth angel to take away my  feeling of being unequal to the most-favored-people on earth, to let me know I belong because I am His.
I felt honored and loved.
I felt upheld by God.

It was never about the groceries.

And I remembered Pastor's most recent sermon:

"There are those who give of their abundance and there are those who give of their very sustenance."

Pastor's voice became trembly as he tried to describe the feelings he experienced recently in Russia 

when Christians there gave of their very sustenance to sustain him.

There is the giving from abundance that helps make the world go round.
And that is good.

Then there is the giving that defies reason,
         that is even better because the love and honor build you up,
                                    both giver and receiver .

I would thank Jen again, but somehow you can seldom do that for earth angels.
They appear and disappear so rapidly.
So.....thank you, God, for Jen and all other earth angels flitting about our world.



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