SURPRISED BY JOY
Sometimes fact is more mysterious than fiction. I clipped a newspaper article several years ago which tells a story that is strange… and beautiful.
Stan heard in church about a Denver, Colorado (USA) family facing a rather bleak Christmas holiday. Medical bills robbed them of any extras; they would not even have a tree. Stan’s pastor asked him if he would get them that tree.
So Stan and his son Jay headed up into the Colorado Rockies in the family pickup. However, the truck skidded off the icy road and hit a boulder that shattered the windshield. Jay was showered by glass slivers and suffered from shock and crash trauma. Stan was uninjured, though somewhat shaken.
Cars sped past that day — maybe 200 of them. Only two stopped to help. A gentle, dark-haired woman took the boy into her car to comfort him while her husband and another man helped Stan move his truck off the road. Then this kind couple drove father and son to Stan’s home and quietly left without identifying themselves.
Stan was discouraged that he was unable to cut a tree for the family that his church was trying to help. But later in the month, the pastor asked if Stan might deliver a food basket to the same unfortunate family. He found the house, but he could hardly find his speech when the door opened. For standing there before him was the same couple who had stopped to help him on the mountain road when so many others had passed him by.
There is a strange power in love. Some folks may call it an amazing coincidence. Others might say it was divine providence. But I choose to think that love has its own power, and that sometimes these kinds of mysteries are better left unanalyzed. Let them remain mysteries.
And enjoy the wonder of it all. For whenever we choose to be kind, we just might be surprised by joy.
– Steve Goodier
Used by permission - www.LifeSupportSystem.com
December 6th, 2008 - Posted in Food for Thought, Used by Permission | |
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