Kindly Deeds

This week after church, I was sitting in my apartment with a friend chatting. I had been prepping food for feeding the missionaries, but since it wasn't time to feed them yet, we were just sitting around.

I heard the distinct sound from the street of a car that was stuck in snow and ice. Being from Utah, I know that sounds well. We have had significant snow and ice here for the past few weeks, so it wasn't surprising. The sides of the streets are filled with cars that are frozen into blocks of icy misery. The car sounded stuck. Really, really stuck. Almost in passing, I said to my friend, "Huh, someone's stuck out there."

Of course, my friend is a better Christian than I often am, and replied, "Should we go help?"

Sheepishly, I agreed that that was actually what we should be doing. So we put our shoes on and went down to the street. The man was actually stuck trying to get INTO a parking spot. We told him we were there to help.

As we pushed and pushed, we couldn't get the car to budge. Then I remembered that we have snow shovels at the church, which is a quick walk from my apartment. (Now you're all realizing the issue we have here--no one has snow shovels because no one has sidewalks . . .)

I told the man that a friend of mine just down the block had shovels, and that we would grab them and come back. (Note: I'm a terrible missionary. What was the thing I should've said here? There's a shovel at my church! I'll go grab it! Oh, what church? Thanks for asking! Etc. This story does not end with me becoming a better missionary, so disabuse yourselves of that hope.)

In any event, we grabbed the shovels and went back to see the man. We dug and dug and shoveled and pushed alongside him. I think that more than anything, he was just buoyed by our presence. It's nice to know you're not suffering alone in those situations.

After a while, my friend had to take off for a church responsibility, but the man and I kept working. Finally, we got his car far enough so as to be close enough to the sidewalk to avoid a ticket. He asked what he could do with the shovels, and I smiled and told him I'd return them to my friend.

He said, "God bless you."

And I said, "God bless you as well."

I walked back to the church with the shovels, thinking how glad I was that my friend thought we should go help this man. During the course of helping him with his car, I found out that he worked in the neighborhood. He was relieved he had decided to come to work early. What a tender mercy that he had decided to head into work early--he wouldn't have made it otherwise.

After I dropped the shovels off, I returned to my apartment via the other direction, somewhat completing a loop between me and the church.

On the back side of the loop, I saw the man again! He was heading to work. He laughed when he saw me and said, "I've been walking and thinking, thank you, God. Thank you for those people. I don't even know how that happened. Thank you, thank you."

It's funny, because I was thinking the same thing: "Thank you, God. Thank you for that man. Thank you for my friend. Thank you for a perfect Sabbath moment."