The Blind Boy

Posted on by Fred D

Ever experience a situation you later regret not taking the time to offer helping someone? . . .

  • a motorist with the hood up on the side of the road
  • an elderly lady pulling two loaded shopping carts through the supermarket parking lot
  • a mother trying to comfort her crying young child who just tripped and fell on the sidewalk

You just read three I’ve been guilty of this past year when, unlike the Good Samaritan, I was too ‘busy’, and chose to “…pass by on the other side of the road…”?  . . . proof positive I’m an ever continuing Christian work-in-progress. My regrets linger, but I’m forever grateful my Abba always has time for me in spite of my ‘blindness’.

Soooooo . . . what prompted these lamentable musings . . . reading the story below today. Whether it’s true or not, its message is. It poignantly reminded me while I sometimes may be ‘blind’ to others in need . . . Love is never blind.

The Blind Boy

Five computer saleswomen from Milwaukee went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. They assured their husbands they would return in ample time for dinner. The meeting ran overtime, and the women ran to the train station tickets in hand.

As they barged through the terminal, one woman inadvertently kicked over as table supporting a basket of apples. A 10-year-old boy was selling apples to pay for his books and clothes for school. Without breaking stride, the women clambered aboard the train with a sigh of relief . . . all but one.

She paused, got in touch with her feelings, and experienced a twinge of compunction for the boy whose apple-stand had been overturned. She told her companions she would catch the next train. Later she told them, “I’m really glad I did, because the 10-year-old boy was blind.”

As the woman gathered up the apples scattered about the floor, she noticed several were bruised. She reached in her pocket and said to the child, “Please accept twenty dollars for the apples I damaged. I hope I didn’t spoil your day. God bless you.”

As she started walking away, the bewildered blind boy called after her, asking, . . .

“Are you Jesus?”

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” – Matthew 25:40

Keep Looking Up . . . His Best is Yet to Come!

Kindness

Posted on by Fred D

Gary is a long-distance friend in Minnesota who recently shared this story of what our world needs more of . . . spontaneous, un-selective random acts of kindness.

Kindness

“Last week when it was really cold (-60 wind chill) a lady I know invited a stranger to sleep on her couch. A truck driver was going to curl up in his idling truck in the gas station parking lot. Different skin color, 600 miles from home, first job out of prison, not used to the cold weather but very used to the coldness of racial tension. By the time he left, the whole family (even her husband) had adopted him and he them.

I love her explanation. “I would never do a thing like that on my own but I just felt moved to tap this guy in front of me in the convenience store line and ask him if he had a place to stay tonight. Then I called my husband and told him we had company for supper and overnight. I knew it was Jesus moving me, I just knew I was safe, so I would not take no for an answer from the trucker or my husband.” A funny-moving story in real life not many will hear, but is somewhat common in some circles.

So, picture me this America. Land of spacious skies, freedom and home of the brave. At least you Jesus followers…how about “Love one another as I have loved you” John 13:34

Turns out our truck driver had found and followed Jesus in prison, but was adrift in the big cold world not having found any support. He found God’s warming love from an unlikely stranger on one of the coldest nights winter could bring. That saga will continue…”

“Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?

And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the King will answer them, Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

Matthew 25:37-40

Thanks Gary.