Americans take care of Americans

As you know, I posted many stories yesterday from readers who sent me their "flash mobs of kindness" experiences to share. I'm happy to report that the stories continued to pour into my email inbox today, including this one.

Karen from Truth for American Teens writes:

My parents and I decided that we would take up this challenge ourselves, remembering the many times when we had be out of work for years at a time, and people had helped us with love gifts.

So today was the big day! After I finished school and some other things, mom and I got into the car and decided to head over to Wal-Mart to pick up some things. Before we left though, mom got the idea that we should get a Wal-Mart gift card as well as some food. We put our money together and got a $30 gift card and several bags a groceries.

As we got into the car to head off to the Workforce mom said, "Karen, we need to pray about this and that God would direct us to the right person to give this to." I agreed, and as she was driving, I prayed for God's guidance and will to be done with this gift, and that He would help all of those around the country that were doing the same thing.

After going on a wild goose chase to find the Workforce (that's a whole other story in itself), we finally made it to the parking lot. As we walked up to the doors, a woman came. I stopped her and asked if she was unemployed. She said "Honey I've been unemployed for a year and I'm on disability." She was in a hurry, but then I asked, "Do you have children?" She sighed and said "Yes I do." I then pulled out the gift card from my pocket and said "This is a $30 Wal-Mart gift card that we would like to bless you with, and we have some bags of groceries if you want them"

The woman looked at the card, put her hand over her mouth and as she started to cry asked, "Are you serious?" Mom and I both said yes, and we held her as she cried for a moment. As we loaded the groceries in her car she told us something that blew Mom and I away. She said "I'm suppose to take my youngest daughter down to Texas Children's tomorrow for tests, and I didn't have money to buy the gas for the trip" Now Mom and I realized why we had been led to get the gift card.

Then the lady asked, "Why are y'all doing this, what church are you from?" I answered, "Ma'am we're not with our church, we were just led to do to this for you because we're your American brothers and sisters, and Americans take care of Americans. She again wiped the tears from her eyes and said "that's right...that's right."

Finally before we left, a gave her my pocket New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs. She thanked me again telling me that she only had some children's Bibles for her girls in the house.

As we drove away, I thought about how great it was to help her. I'm planning on talking to my parents about doing this once a month. We give to charities regularly, but this was very personal. Again, it was an American sister helping another American sister in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Mom, dad, and I are glad we took Glenn Beck up on this challenge of kindness.