I was still working full time as a county extension agent and being involved with the fair mere days before my due date was a special kind of hell. (I swear, we will look at a calendar before and plan before we have another kid that requires me to be pregnant during the summer.)
For all the stress and everything else that comes with fair wrap up plus having a baby at any moment, one especially bright spot will always stick with me. When it came to mind this evening I still teared up just thinking about how great small towns can be, how great 4-H can be. It didn't take me long to dig through my files and find this wonderful story, written mere hours before my son was born. (I really wish I had placed an asterisk in the following story each time I had to pause and breathe deeeeeeeply through a contraction.) It was like goodness, followed by more goodness. My favorite kind of story. Enjoy.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Silver Lining
Friday was a crappy day. No, horrible. No, even that's not enough. It was downrightshee-tay. Top ten worst of all time, no joke. Just one thing after another after another.
Hopefully you get the picture and I need not elaborate further. God has a funny way of helping out on shee-tay days like Friday, though.
I had a check sitting on the corner of my desk at the J-O-B, waiting patiently on a mother to come pick it up.
She finally came into the office, rather clueless of what she was doing there. I sat her down in my office and she proceeded to tell me that the strangest thing had just happened.
Her daughter had sold a steer at the fair a few days earlier and it didn't bring very much premium money. Several hundred dollars less than any other calf at the sale, in fact. While at the feed store not 30 minutes prior to entering my office, the feed store owner had given the lady and her daughter a check for $200. Premium money he had 'forgotten' to spend that night at the sale. My heart started to warm.
I handed her the check that was sitting on the corner of my desk. I explained to her how the beef judge at the fair had donated his judging fee back and wanted it to be given to a deserving kid. The daughter, a young girl with long, white-blonde hair kept dancing around her mom's chair. "Mom, can you believe it?! We're like RICH now!"
The mom kept staring off into space, shaking her head. Partly because she couldn't believe it, and partly because if she looked anywhere but up the tears in her eyes would start to spill over.
Even though I really had nothing to do with that family's good fortune, I was merely the bearer of great news, it did my heart good to get to be a part of the process. I'm sure that judge had no idea how many folks he was truly touching when he did such a good deed. I'm sure the feed store owner had no idea that he was absolutely melting my heart either.
This is my heartfelt thank you to them and encouragement to everyone to 'pass it on', 'pay it forward', or whatever your phrase of choice may be. Go do something good and see if you can inadvertently turn someone's day around.
Hopefully you get the picture and I need not elaborate further. God has a funny way of helping out on shee-tay days like Friday, though.
I had a check sitting on the corner of my desk at the J-O-B, waiting patiently on a mother to come pick it up.
She finally came into the office, rather clueless of what she was doing there. I sat her down in my office and she proceeded to tell me that the strangest thing had just happened.
Her daughter had sold a steer at the fair a few days earlier and it didn't bring very much premium money. Several hundred dollars less than any other calf at the sale, in fact. While at the feed store not 30 minutes prior to entering my office, the feed store owner had given the lady and her daughter a check for $200. Premium money he had 'forgotten' to spend that night at the sale. My heart started to warm.
I handed her the check that was sitting on the corner of my desk. I explained to her how the beef judge at the fair had donated his judging fee back and wanted it to be given to a deserving kid. The daughter, a young girl with long, white-blonde hair kept dancing around her mom's chair. "Mom, can you believe it?! We're like RICH now!"
The mom kept staring off into space, shaking her head. Partly because she couldn't believe it, and partly because if she looked anywhere but up the tears in her eyes would start to spill over.
Even though I really had nothing to do with that family's good fortune, I was merely the bearer of great news, it did my heart good to get to be a part of the process. I'm sure that judge had no idea how many folks he was truly touching when he did such a good deed. I'm sure the feed store owner had no idea that he was absolutely melting my heart either.
This is my heartfelt thank you to them and encouragement to everyone to 'pass it on', 'pay it forward', or whatever your phrase of choice may be. Go do something good and see if you can inadvertently turn someone's day around.
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Just like mama said... If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.