Dinner at Wendy’s
By April Terry (personal blog http://faithwarming.blogspot.com)
I’d noticed an older woman staring at us when we first sat down and it appeared she was homeless, but I tried not to stare. So, I was busy playing with my cell phone while munching down on Wendy’s chili when my husband whispered, “Did you see that?” I looked up quickly.
“No, what?”
“That woman just waited until those people left, and they left their cups on the table. So, she went over and took one of their cups and went up front and got a refill.”
“Ooh. How sad,” I was slightly sickened at the idea of drinking from someone else’s cup, but sad for her. She was dirty. Really dirty.
My husband and son went up to order a frosty, but I didn’t want one. Then, when my son returned with the frosties, I saw the inequity. I asked my son to let me out, and as he asked if I had changed my mind about a Frosty, I just told him to wait and I would explain later. Then, I went up front, and I ordered a five dollar gift card. I went to the back of the restaurant and placed it quietly on the table in front of her. “This is for you,” I said, and I left it there with the receipt.
“Thank you,” she said.
I returned to my seat, and my husband said, “That was a good thing you did.” I just smiled. It was the right thing to do.
We finished our Frosties and got up to leave and she waved at us as we exited. I noticed that there was a shopping cart parked on the sidewalk nearby that was filled with all her worldly goods. As we were discussing her on the way home, my husband said, “So, what did you say to her? Did you tell her ‘Jesus loves you’ or something?” He had a smirky smile on his face, and I knew he was just teasing me.
“No. I just said, ‘This is for you.’” He seemed more satisfied with that. All of the sudden, it was something that I did out of the heart and not just as an ad campaign for Jesus. I suppose that I’ve done enough stumping for Jesus in my time. This time, it seemed to be more legitimate to him because I didn’t try to force Jesus into it. It didn’t matter. I didn’t have to because we all knew that Jesus was involved, anyway. My husband told me three more times that evening how proud he was of me.





