With heavy eye lids, I glanced at
the golden rays of morning light bursting over the blue horizon. I could tell
that it was going to be a cold but beautiful day, yet one that I was planning
on sleeping through.
As I drove down this
empty road, I realize that I was slightly hungry. My eyes lit up as I pass by a
cobalt blue sign alerting me that a 24 hour “Wawa” is just a mile away.
“God that sounds good,” I said to myself with a watering
mouth as I thought about the quesadilla that they sold there.
Although this food sounded amazing, something was telling me
to keep driving. I felt this strange pull to instead wait another thirty
minutes until I arrived at the doughnut shop by my sister’s apartment. I didn’t
feel like eating breakfast food but I couldn’t shake that feeling that I should
go and that I needed to get my food from the doughnut shop instead.
I felt silly as I passed by “Wawa” and continued down the
road. I had no idea why my gut was telling me to go to this doughnut shop
instead of the place that I wanted to eat.
After half an hour, I finally arrived and stepped through the
jingling door. Immediately I am greeted by a sweet smell of pastries and fresh
muffins. Although this carbohydrate-packed sugar-coated food is normally very
appealing, I was more in the mood to get a quesadilla.
I didn’t know why I felt
the need to go to this store, until I peeked over to the dining area. Immediately
my eyes fall upon four homeless people, sleeping soundly on the chairs. Looking
at the cashier, I realized that this man had been kind enough to allow these
three men and one woman to sleep in a warm building during the cold night. I
was touched.
When I went up to order my food, I ordered extra four egg bagels,
four muffins, and four coffees for them. The cashier smiled, when he saw me
glance in the direction of the people soundly sleeping. He quickly scurried to
the back to get the food ready and as I waited, I observed each of these
people, quietly wondering to myself what their stories where. Three of them looked
like they had been homeless for a while, but the fourth one was a reminder of
how quickly your life can turn upside down. With his head resting soundly on
his arm, he had fallen asleep with newspaper opened to the job section in front
of him. I feel such a sad energy coming off of him, as he slept, wearing his
worn out suit and an old cell phone resting in his hand.
When the cashier approached me with the breakfasts, I thanked
him for being kind enough to let these people sleep here for a night. He shrugged
his shoulders and said with a thick foreign accent, “Where else would they go?
It was cold.”
One by one I handed out the breakfasts, placing each one on
the tables in front of them. One man woke up and grunted, looking half asleep
while he pulled open the packaging to the egg bagel.
As I walked away, this wave of relief came over me. I am
blessed enough to have food on my table every day. I have gone hungry in the
past, when I couldn’t afford food, and to be able to share with someone who is
hungry is such a fulfilling experience.
Today I want to talk to you about listing to
your gut. Sometimes the universe asks us to go somewhere or do something
through that little tugging feeling inside. We may feel silly at first but when
we realize the reason that we are doing it, the silly feeling goes away and
immediately we find ourselves doing something beautiful for someone else.
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