Act of Kindness – Week #5!!

“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” Ephesians 4:32

*The act of kindness this week…while paying for your food order at a restaurant’s drive thru, show kindness by paying for the person’s order in the vehicle behind you!!

     Several of us have probably heard about people showing kindness by paying for a stranger’s food order in a drive thru line! Maybe you have done this act of kindness or have been blessed with the stranger in front of you paying for your meal! What a pleasant surprise it must be, especially if you are not having the best day! I have never paid for a stranger’s meal or had a stranger pay for mine so when I thought about what act of kindness I wanted to intentionally do this weekend (with being out of town from Friday morning to Sunday evening), showing kindness by paying for a stranger’s meal was the pick!!

*My experience with the act of kindness…I made a homemade note card before going out of town on Friday in preparation for the act of kindness! While being out of town, my family and I almost went the whole weekend without having a meal at a fast food restaurant. That is probably a good thing except when you are wanting to show kindness by paying for the person’s order in the vehicle behind you! Sunday lunch came, and I knew it was going to be the last meal before getting back in town so even though my sister suggested a sit down restaurant, we ended up in the drive thru at a Wendy’s in Indiana! I did not expect for us to get lunch so soon so I had to quickly write a message on the homemade note card (in doing so, I forgot to take a picture of the finished product for this blog post). The message that I wrote on the note card that would be handed to the cashier to give to the vehicle behind us said: “Happy Sunday! Enjoy your meal and please pass along this act of kindness! Ephesians 4:32”

     Wendy’s was a very busy place while we were there too! After paying for our food, the cashier quickly handed us a couple drinks and a couple bags of food. A quick look made us realize that our orders were missing items so the lady had to open the drive thru window to hand us what we were missing several times before we had everything. My husband was in the driver’s seat with our credit card and the homemade note card in his hand the whole time, and I could tell that we were both thinking since we have asked the cashier already for several things that maybe we should not ask her to do something else...BUT being intentional sometimes means stepping out of our comfort zone and a lot of times in my case it means being brave! When the cashier asked if there was anything else we needed, my husband very kindly said there was one more thing and that we would like to pay for the order behind us!

     As we were pulling away from Wendy’s, I could not help but look at what vehicle was behind us. It was a minivan with a lady a little older than me driving it. My husband prayed before we started eating and asked a special blessing over the person/family in the van behind us! Maybe us paying for her meal just simply put a smile on her face and brightened her day! Maybe the Ephesians verse on the homemade note card would lead her to opening a Bible! Maybe she will pass along the same act of kindness and touch other people’s lives as well!

     As we started eating, I kept thinking about the Wendy's cashier lady and how very kind and patient my husband was with her the whole time! I can’t image how many angry customers she gets when orders are messed up. I pray that with my husband being kind to her and since she was “the person in the middle” during the act of kindness, she also smiled and enjoyed her day!

     What I learned the most from this experience was…while focusing on showing kindness to the vehicle behind us, we just might have showed as much or more kindness to the cashier lady! Our intentional act of kindness was done with a credit card and note but the kindness we did not really realize we were showing until after it was done was through my husband's words and actions! Let that sink in some…how very powerful our words and actions are!!

p.s. Please comment below with your own experience with this act of kindness! I would really enjoy hearing about it!! 

***A big congratulations to my Grandparent's on celebrating 55 years of marriage this weekend and to my cousins, Amber and Alex, on the birth of their first baby girl!! It was a wonderful weekend away spent with family celebrating these two great events!!