Some Thirty, Some Sixty, Some A Hundred Fold
Although I’ve experienced many manifestations of the Holy Spirit since the day of May 9th, 2004, this is story is about an experience I had in Feb. of 2001. I wrote out the story about two or three months after the initial incident during one of those nights when inspiration comes upon one so strongly, everything else is easily laid aside.
ONE OF US
(as written in late winter of 2001)
The first verse of Joan Osborne’s “Relish” album hit “One of Us” is sung as follows:
“If God had a name
What would it be
And would you call it to His face
If you were faced with Him
In all His glory
What would you ask
If you had just one question……”
The first time I ever heard the song, “One of Us”, I was intrigued. The first time I was able to hear the song in its entirety and actually listen to the words, I was driving home from work. As I listened intently, my eyes began welling with tears. Had there been a place to pull over, I would have done so and wept.
I’ve been contemplating some pretty heavy duty aspects of the whole God and man relationship more so since having gone heavily into debt in an attempt to trade my way out of debt as perverse as it sounds. I should have listened to those who warned me not to do it.
I tell myself (after the fact) I didn’t want to be rich, just comfortable. But I am reminded of the week in ’00 when one stock I used to own around $6 went to the low $20’s, and how if I had just kept it instead of becoming disgusted and selling (it traded down below a dollar before catching fire), I could have traded it for another stock I was watching. I would have sold it for a double and on and on until I could have made 100K in one week. I played this mind game off and on for a long time afterwards. I think I finally hit bottom in July of ‘00 when, so paralyzed by the fear of being wrong, I quit the market all together, 15K in debt.
All those years of watching, learning, and finally playing with the fire of trading seem at this point wasted. I still watch a couple of the financial channels to see what stock is where, and I tell myself I’ll never get back in. I wish the desire to know would go away entirely like in the ‘80’s when they would give the market report and I would think to myself, “who cares.”
Since August (2000), I’ve tried to fill my life with doing. I’ve embarked on a venture which actually gives me joy, and I’ve made a little money from it. Yet my mind is constantly buzzing (or, I talk to myself a lot). I’ve been inundated with a series of ever changing questions which keep nagging at me about my relationship (not with) to God and what exactly the whole purpose is, or if it is even worth it to begin with.
Having said that, there is one story in the Bible which I cannot ignore. It is the story of the Good Samaritan. About two or three weeks ago, upon pulling into the parking lot of the convenience store where I buy cigarettes and play the numbers (I still have the desire to be comfortable, or maybe it is to just win) on a bi-monthly basis, I saw two individuals walking away from the store and towards the highway. I sat in my car and watched as they just kept on walking. Before exiting the car to go into the store, I remember looking up through the windshield towards the sky and quietly speaking aloud, “Lord, please find someone else to give them a ride.” I got out of the car, went into the store, and got what I wanted. While at the counter, I inquired about the couple I had seen walking towards the highway. I was told they were in the store trying to sell anything they had of value because they were broke and on foot. The story was they had been walking for four days from a place where their vehicle had broken down on their way to Monett.
I remember, while watching the couple prior to going into the store, one of them was a woman with long black hair. I wondered if she was Hispanic, and if I found out she was if I could bring myself to pick them up and give them a ride because I am not particularly fond of Hispanics in general. (*1) When I heard more about the couple’s story, I decided I was capable of giving them a ride since I had time even though it would be in the opposite direction of my return trip home. There was a part of me which wanted to say, “well, I hope someone(ELSE) picks them up,” but there was an even greater, however apprehensive, desire to go pick them up and take them to the next town.
SJ knew I had gone to make the trip, but she wouldn’t know if I had taken on a couple of riders and driven them another twenty or so miles to the next town. I decided to leave my name and phone number with the store’s owner. I told her I was going to give the people a ride to Cassville. I wanted someone to know who I was in case I came up missing; I wanted SJ to know just in case.
I don’t pick up everybody I see walking, but I’ve given rides to a lot of strangers which, to this day, I’ve ever yet to see again. I do it because I’ve been in the exact situation, and I know from experience just what it is like. I left the store and traveled a few hundred yards down the road without seeing the couple. I thought perhaps someone had given them a ride. “Oh well, SJ needed the extra gas in her car anyway,” I thought to myself, having put extra gas in the car prior to leaving. Then I saw them, still walking ever so slowly along the side of the road. I cannot help but believe, after looking back on the experience, there must have been some force guiding me on this distraction from my normal bi-monthly routine. On the opposite side of the road across from the couple was a large graveled place to pull off the roadway. I pulled off the road, honked the car’s horn, and they turned and came towards the car. The male was white, and the girl was……….Mexican looking. I asked if they would like a ride, and the male said they would.
I did most of the talking with all of the ‘where ya heading’ questions. Then I told them I had seen them walking when I pulled up to the store, and how I had done what they were doing and hated to see them walking especially when so few people are willing to give strangers a ride. The area where I had picked them up and where I was going to take them was hilly and curvy. I knew it would have been very difficult for them to get a ride because there just aren’t that many places where a driver can pull off the road safely.
They told me about their experience thus far. They had used the last of their money to find a motel room the night before. They hadn’t eaten for the better part of the day. All they had was what they were wearing and some clothes stuffed into a duffle bag……oh, and cell phones. I thought it was odd they would have cell phones, but realized later it is so common place nowadays. It is probably unusual that SJ and I don’t have one. Don’t need it. When we got to Cassville, I asked if they had eaten that day, and they told me they hadn’t. I knew there was a Subway Sandwich Shop on the main street and thought a sandwich would provide a good meal for them for the time being. After pulling into the sandwich shop and going inside, I told them to get a six inch sandwich apiece. I had a couple of cards in my wallet which I had filled and was saving for a couple of free ones for myself, but let them use them instead. A young girl came into the store while we were waiting on the sandwiches. I asked her if she was going to Monett or if she knew anyone who would be; no to both questions. While the Subway employee was making the sandwiches, the male member of the couple put out his hand and said, “My name is Mike, and my wife’s name is Nancy.”
I replied, “What a coincidence, so is mine.”
Mike told me he was a pipeline welder, but lost his job. He said one of his eyes was also bad, and I assumed that because of his vision perhaps this was the reason he was no longer employed as a welder. He said they had been in Clarksville for awhile, but they just weren’t getting anywhere. He told me his son lived in Monett at one time, and it was the son they were going to try and find.
When the sandwiches were ready, I asked the guy if there was any additional expense, and he told me not to worry about it. I found out later when I discovered I had a third full card in my wallet and used it to get a free six inch sub (a couple of weeks later), I had to buy a medium sized drink to be able to use the card. I thought it was kind of a rip-off at the time, but realized later that the Subway employee in Cassville either covered the cost of the drinks on his own, or just let it slide. (I wonder if his name was Mike, too.)
We left the sandwich shop and got back into the car. When we were back on the road, I asked Mike where he would like to be let out. He thought there was a grocery store somewhere along the road to Monett from Cassville, but I told him I didn’t know of one. I suggested the Wal-Mart at the top of the hill which was pretty much the end of the city limits. He thought that would be okay.
We pulled into the Wal-Mart parking lot and I asked Mike if he wanted to go up to the store itself thinking maybe they could ask for a ride on up the road. He said he would rather be let out away from the store. I pulled to a stop, wished them luck with their journey, and he said thank you and goodbye. Nancy didn’t say hardly five words from the time I picked them up until I let them out, and she didn’t utter a word after getting out of the car. Of course, I just had to open my mouth between Subway and Wal-Mart. I was telling them how I used to live in Rogers, but that I moved to another community. I told them it was getting a bit racially diverse, and how I preferred living in all white or nearly all white communities. I told them I felt when there were problems between people, race and prejudice wasn’t an issue when all the people living in a community were pretty much the same color. I don’t guess I could blame Nancy for not uttering one single word of gratitude after my insensitive comment. (*2)
I remembered that I had intended to give Mike five dollars, and he had left the car before I did so. I hollered back at Mike. He came back to the car, and I handed him the money. I wished it could have been more, but I only had about fifty dollars to get through the next two weeks. I wished him luck again, and we parted.
While thinking of the experience on my drive back, I wondered if I shouldn’t have gone into the Wal-Mart in Cassville and asked for a ride for the couple I was letting off. I imagined myself, Mike and Nancy at my side, walking into the store in front of the entry and exit doors and shouting to get the attention of the shoppers in the general vicinity.
I could just imagine the shocked, puzzled, and even disgruntled looks I would get when asking if any of the patrons was going back towards Monett, and if one of them would be willing to give the couple a ride. I doubted there would be one of the many shoppers who would step forward to inquire further. I didn’t doubt the kind of talk which would evolve after I would eventually exit after no one would step forward. But who knows, maybe there would have been someone. There are times when it only takes one to say, “I will.”
Before heading back home, I stopped in the convenience store to let them know I was back safely. I picked up the slip with my name and phone number on it. The owner and I chatted a little while. Before I left she asked if there was anything else I needed. I told her, “Not unless you need some firewood.” Then she proceeded to tell me that she was out, and her suppliers hadn’t inquired about leaving any for awhile.
Two weeks later on my bi-monthly trip I noticed she was still out of the bundles of firewood she sells at the store. I told her I could take care of it if she needed some to sell retail. She told me I could bring her some. The following Wednesday night, I brought her five bundles of wood. Two weeks after the initial delivery, I brought another four bundles. On the weekend between the two weeks, after checking my tickets as usual, one of them came up a winner. I won 26 dollars. Not a lot of money, but twenty-six more dollars than I had won in the prior three years. I believe my helping Mike and Nancy came back to me many time over with ticket win and the wood sales. (*3) I’m hoping it may lead to other things. I also hope the next time I get that apprehensive feeling about helping out a stranger in a similar situation to that of Mike and Nancy, I can say, “I will”.
I’ve said, “I will” to the extent I offered what little I had to give to Mike and Nancy one other time, and countless times taking a stranger on down the road I was traveling. But had it not been for Pam, a young 27 year old Hot Springs telephone operator who, on Dec. 18th, 1980, picked me up (while hitchhiking between Springdale and Rogers on my way to Lawrence, KS), took me to lunch, AND gave me five dollars before letting me out in Bentonville, I might not have been as willing to go to the extent I did for Mike and Nancy. So Lord, if you’re reading, you can put all those good deeds in Pam’s column because she did the same thing for me all those years ago. And Pam, wherever you may be, thank you, and……..I paid it forward.
“Lord, when did we see you cold, hungry, or naked?” And Jesus replied, “When you did it unto the least of them, you did it unto me.”
“If God had a name, what would it be……”
Mercy?
(*1) Before I experienced the joy of the Spirit of God coming upon on me, I had a subtle prejudice towards people of Hispanic origin. Since working at my convenience store job, I’ve had many Hispanics as customers. As a rule, they’re well dressed, take care of their families, well mannered, and nothing like I had heard or envisioned them to be. They simply speak a language I don’t understand. Nor are they any different than I, in that they desire as much as I to have a better life for themselves and those they love.
(*2) I don’t believe when God created Adam, our Lord ever intended for man be of different colors and creeds. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus said, “To love the Lord God with all your heart. And the second greatest like unto the first; to love one another.” Notice there are no stipulations “to love one another”. It is man which judges one another by race, creed, color, sex, etc., etc.
(*3) Since first writing about this particular experience, I’ve sold so many bundles of wood that I’ve lost count. And the original account in not the only account. Hence the title of this testimony, “Some Thirty, Some Sixty, Some A Hundred Fold”. I sowed a seed in faith to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and was rewarded because I did so. I didn’t do it to receive a reward. I did it because Jesus did it for me at Calvary. |
