Hopeful

This happened last month. I don't know why it has taken so long to blog about.

In my jaded view of the world I am often discouraged. My mind gets too overwhelmed with the hurt and anger of the world. Especially now with the increasing homelessness and poverty of people all over the United States. Watching the news, it seems to be a rarity that a story involving some kind of happy ending makes the headlines. There was even a commercial on TV the other night about hunger amongst children in Utah alone encouraging people that could to donate to the Utah food banks. It was something along the lines of a little girl rocking her baby to sleep, singing a lullaby about how they couldn't have dinner tonight. It brought me to tears.

We were grocery shopping. It was pretty late at night. We were in a hurry trying to get home so we could get Kade in bed. We desperately needed to do our bi-monthly grocery shopping! A man got in line behind us. Just a quiet guy, with his cart full of his own families groceries. About half way into our purchase, this man behind us asked the checker to stop ringing up our groceries. He said, "charge them for what you've already scanned. I'll purchase the rest for them." WHAT? Who does this? The checker looked at him with wide eyes, as did we. We insisted that it was ok, we could take care of it. It's not a big deal. It was over $120 of groceries that he was offering to pay for! He turned to us and said, "really let me do this. I remember what it was like to be young and married with a baby." (I don't know if we just looked super homeless that night or what.) After going back and forth with this for a while, he continued to insist that he pay for the remainder of our groceries. Thank yous stumbled from our mouths.

We walked out of the store dumbfounded. It took me so long to even get my mind wrapped around the idea that someone would just do this for someone they didn't know, without asking for anything in return. It gave me hope that the world still has good people in it. Generous people that are willing to serve their fellow men. Heavenly Father knew I needed that.

I don't feel like we are in need of a lot. We have a happy healthy little boy (minus his cold he is going through right now), Aaron got a new job in January. A good job, in a country where finding a job right now can be near impossible. We are so happy in our marriage. I married my best friend and couldn't ask for a better husband and father for Kade! We haven't ever gone hungry, and we have a roof over our heads. But Heavenly Father knew I needed a reminder that there are still good people in the world.

While we can't go around helping people pay for their groceries, I have decided I want to pay it forward. I kept trying to think of some huge thing I could do to pay it forward. It always came down to just a lot of small things. I have always thought that service should go "un-bragged" about, so I'll leave it at that. But I do challenge everyone else to do small acts of kindness to strangers. Remind other people that, like me, think kindness and respect are coming near to an end, that there is still happiness and generosity!