... and about my shopping habits?

I had to run a quick errand this morning, and at the corner up by Walmart, I passed this guy, who was kind of down on his luck.  I thought "I can't help everyone, I do what I can, based on how I'm moved to do so, sorry, this just isn't the day". 

Then I saw his sign.

I was busted.

I drove back around the corner and offered a little something to help him out, with two conditions:

1) Pray for my family and me (I always ask them to do that, and haven't run into any atheists yet)
2) I HAVE TO HAVE A PICTURE OF THAT SIGN.  (I muttered something about being a simple man too)

Here it is, offered for the amusement of the readership:

Remember this one?

Never did see that one, but it's quite clever.  If this is real, may God bless the woman who did this.

Again, I can't help everybody.  I can't afford to help everyone.  I just have to have some vague notion in my mind of whether THIS particular person is the one I am called upon to help today.

Today, there was no doubt.

My dear father, though he would give the shirt off his back to anyone he was convinced needed it, was always skeptical of panhandlers ("winos" was his word for them).  This said, he wrote off a $2000+ debt from a man who bought some furniture from him on time payments and couldn't pay for it, and for some reason seemed not to have the furniture anymore (maybe sold it because he needed the money and didn't have it to give back, that was the vibe we got, the man said "it would break my wife's heart to have to give that furniture back").  My father was not one to talk religion, but he said that he just didn't feel right about taking the guy to small claims court, and said he thought God would just want him to let it go.  It wasn't good getting shafted like that, but he pretty well felt that the guy was in desperate financial straits --- he'd lost his job --- and, again, it just seemed like the right thing to do.  

When I feel moved to do so, I just put the "wino" thing in the Hands of God, but I understand my father's skepticism.  He wasn't a bad guy to owe money to.  When he was about to be drafted (he went ahead and volunteered so that he could pick his specialty, Army medic), he had worked for an old-timey country doctor for many years. He didn't have a fixed salary, the doctor felt sorry for his having been left without a father at age 9 and with a widowed mother who cleaned house for people, and basically paid the family's bills in return for my father's work, to make sure those bills got paid.  At the end, my father owed the doctor $900, but the doctor just forgave the debt.  So maybe writing off the furniture guy's debt was my father's way of cutting someone else slack who needed it.

SimpleMan, thanks for sharing your shopping encounter and that pic of his sign.  Nice to hear some good news. 

God does work in mysterious ways.....

The story about your dear father(RIP)reminds me of the Bible story in Matthew about the unforgiving servant towards another servant, except your dear father did the right thing by forgiving the $2,000 debt.

Pursuing the debt was going to mean a lot of trouble, many trips back and forth to the county's small claims court, two hours each way, and damage to another person, and to his family, that would never be forgotten by anyone.  In all likelihood, the guy got his tail in a crack, sold the furniture to get quick cash, and didn't have the money to pay it back.  He shouldn't have done that, but he did.  Life is imperfect, and people are imperfect.  My father would have been totally entitled to the money under contract law, but he chose to consider other things that, in this instance, were more important.

Life lesson to be learned --- don't sell things to people on time payments.  Get your cash up front, and be done with it.