My roommate Corrine and I went to Walmart this morning because we have some weekend *PLANS* that involve people and food. (Can you say party time? ohhh yeah!) If everybody we’ve invited comes over on Saturday night, we could have 16 people in our apartment. We’re wondering where we’re going to put them all. What a great problem to have!
But all that aside. We were headed out of Wally-World with our plunder when I saw this man walking the same way we were. As we got to the car, I heard him call out, but assuming he was talking to someone else, I pulled open the door and put the milk on the back seat.
But he walked right toward us with this preface: “I don’t mean no harm.”
Um… Awkward moment. I wasn’t sure whether to just hop in the car and tell Corrine to start driving, or… warily stay and finish the conversation. I didn’t think he DID mean any harm, but still… two single girls, a strange guy… I kind of blinked toward him, not sure what to do.
He stopped just a few feet shy of us. “I don’t mean no harm,” he reasserted. ”I just need 80 cents. Tryin’ to buy gas for my mower so I can mow my grass, that’s all. This is embarrassing, I’m sorry… I just need 80 cents. Can you help me?”
He must have come from the Walmart gas station across the parking lot.
Talk about an awkward moment! What should we do? I was brought up by parents who always told me a) that I should be kind to people, but b) that I should never give money to strangers, because who knows who they might be and they could totally be some psycho freak drug addict who just wants to know if you have money and really wants to kidnap you, shove you in their trunk, and take you to Tuscaloosa where you’ll likely live out the rest of your life chained to a flagpole in a closet feeding rats that escaped from the local experimental laboratory.
But… this guy seemed sincere, at least. I glanced at Corrine because I was closer to the guy and the likely one to act, but frankly, she was no help. I was on my own, drat it.
Ummmm… Well, I have to admit, I’ve been that guy before. Stuck without enough cash in a place that’s only full of strangers, wondering if there’s anybody who’d trust me enough- and anybody I could trust enough- who I could get help from. I pulled up my purse and opened the top, glancing down inside to see if I had enough change. I knew I did… somehow over the course of this semester I’ve actually accumulated a little cash (sooo unusual for someone who lives on a debit card, but hey, I’ll take it).
But… I chickened out. I almost grabbed my three quarters and a nickel to offer to him, but I suddenly went into a FREEZE mode. I can’t do this… I thought, and all those what-ifs that I was raised to think about in the interest of personal defense flooded my mind.
So. I looked back at the guy and I lied. “I’m sorry,” I said with an apologetic, if slightly nervous, smile. “I don’t have 80 cents.”
“I don’t, either,” Corrine echoed.
“Sorry,” I said again, as if saying it twice made it somehow more true. I was sorry. I felt awful.
And that feeling just intensified as we got in the car and shut and locked the doors, glancing back at the man who was left in our wake, now trying to find someone else to accost in his pursuit of money to pay for his gas.
If I hadn’t been scared, I could’ve made a difference in somebody’s life today. Did I totally blow it? What harm could there have been in giving the guy 80 cents? He was probably legit… Yeah, I know, who knows? But still… What would Jesus have done?
Sometimes I think we let our fear get in the way of helping other people out with the little things. If I were bold, maybe I could have used that 80 cents as an avenue to share my faith. I wonder if God was testing me, trying to show me how I can do things differently.
What do you think? Did I blow it completely? What would you do?
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