Pay it Forward....

Pay it forward...............
I remember hearing that phrase but never really knowing what it meant. A friend of mine then told me about the movie with that title and I later found out about the book from which the movie was developed.

In short, the movie is about a young boy who is given an assignment by his teacher. The assignment was to help 3 people, and in turn those 3 would help 3 others and so on and so forth.

Before I get to what happened to me on Saturday, let me go back to last month (April). My aunt who lives in Florida was in the hospital and dying. I drove down to be by her side and on the way back after her funeral, I got to SC and pulled into a rest stop because the drive was taking a toll on me. Anyhoo, I got out of my car to get my jacket out of the trunk. There was this guy in the area and he got out of his car and he began yelling "ma'am, please help."Me not knowing what was going on went back into my car, turned off the ignition and I locked my car door (my kids were in the back asleep). He explained to me that he, his wife and his daughter were there and had no more money for gas. They had driven to the other side of SC to attend a family member's funeral and they were tired and feeling helpless because they were trapped.
Now normally don't carry cash but I happened to have some. I gave it to him and explained that was all I had. He graciously took it and said thank you so much, God bless you. I went to sleep for a few hours and then got back on the road home.

Driving home, I thought about them and prayed that they made it home safely and that the $11 I gave them was enough to get them home. I called a friend of mine and after she blessed me out for doing that in the middle of the night, she said "you know what...you're a giving person and you can't be anything else. I wouldn't expect anything less from you than what you did. God is going to bless you."
Within a week or 2, I forgot about that situation and got back into the hustle and bustle of every day life.

On Saturday, I was in the checkout aisle at Aldi's, a grocery store. There was a woman behind me and she didn't have a buggy, but had two large boxes of groceries. I told her to go ahead and put her items up on the belt and just put my groceries in front of hers.
My order came up to $40.24 and I swiped my ATM card. For some unknown reason, it came up as declined. That happened 3 times and after confusion came embrassment. I told her I would run across the street to the ATM machine and come right back.
That SAME woman behind me said "I got it." As soon as she said that the first thing I said was "Oh no you don't have to do that."...Thinking about now, why do we block our blessings?
Anyway.....she spoke very softly and said again, "I have it...I'm paying it forward".
I almost started to cry and wanted to hug her, but I didn't, I guess because I was in shock.

I KNEW I had the money, I called my bank when I got back in the car and the money was there but for whatever reason it would not work at the store.

The first thing I thought of was what she said..."pay it forward"...I said alright God...it's my turn now to bless someone.

Today, I had a revelation of sorts....I believe that was my blessing from helping that family back in April. Of course it wasn't the same amount, but the situations were very similar. I was at the store with a buggy full of groceries and didn't know what to do. I felt helpless because I could not understand why my card did not work. That gentleman felt helpless because he couldn't get home.
Thinking back, if I said something mean, looked at her in a strange way-with an attitude (you know how we do sometimes), or didn't ask her to place her items up on the belt, would I have received that blessing. We have to be so careful because one wrong move can block out blessing.
I don't know if I'll ever see that woman again, but what I do know is that the generosity she showed me yesterday will be passed on to strangers I may meet, and the cycle will continue. It is my hope and prayer that the gentleman in SC and his family have also passed on their blessing.