I was walking through the grocery store yesterday, just minding my own business, when an elderly lady down the fruit isle dropped her wallet. There was quite a number of people down that same isle so I started to walk on, thinking in to myself that “someone” in that isle would help the poor old woman, when I saw him; a little boy of about five years old.
He had been running around his mom begging for “Just one piece of candy” for the past ten minutes, but when the lady dropped her wallet he froze. Dropping his piece of candy on the shelf next to him he ran to retrieve the fallen wallet. He swooped down and snatched it off of the dirty grocery floor.
“Here you go, you dropped your wallet.” He said, holding it out to the elderly woman then walking back to his smiling mother. I stared for only a moment and then walked on.
Through the rest of the store I couldn’t stop thinking about that little boy. Why did he stop to pick up the wallet? Why had he even given her a second glance? And why, of all things, had he wavered from begging for the candy just to help an old woman? These questions ran through my mind as I walked through the rest of the store. As I got to the check out line the little boy and his mother were in front of me, he now smiling, was holding a whole bag of candy in his hands.
I leaned down and looked at him, from eye level, and said, “Hey, what’s your name?” with a smile. He looked at me, his mother, then back at me again. He grinned, “Johnny, sir.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Johnny. Hey, could I ask you a question?” He looked quizzically at me and then nodded his head. “Why did you pick up that wallet and hand it back to that woman a few minutes ago?”
Little Johnny smiled; he was missing his two front teeth. He was a cute little guy, with light brown hair and green eyes. “Well Mr., if I wouldn’t have, who would ‘a?”
Tears came to my eyes then as I looked at this little ones face. It’s crazy to believe that while I was thinking “Somebody else but me”, Little Johnny was thinking “Who else but me?”. I ruffled his hair, paid for my grocery’s, and walked out of the store with tear filled eyes.
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
James 1:27
For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Philippians 2:13
In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Matthew 5:16
