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Monday, August 2, 2010

Week 31 • Random Act of Kindness

I Heart Faces is featuring a wonderful charity called Inspiration Through Art (Littlest Heroes Project) this week. This charity centers around Professional Photographers taking photos for families with children who are suffering from any type of serious illness.

Our post this week is supposed to be about how we give back thru photography.

www.littlestheroesproject.org


When I learned that I Heart Faces this week was focusing on Random Acts of Kindness, I immediately thought of one particular incident that I witnessed. This was an amazing act that was done by one of my younger brothers, this last Thanksgiving (2009) and I JUST have to share.

My brother Juan is married to an amazing woman and they have three beautiful children. They have always shown their children how to give back to the community.

My husband and I have traveled to Ohio to spend Thanksgiving with my brother and his family for the last two years since they have been there. Being so far from family has been hard for them.

It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and we needed a couple of items from the grocery store. So we piled into the car and headed over to Krogers. The store was buzzing with people rushing to get last minute items. We gathered what we needed and stood in the checkout line.

In front of us in line was a young woman with a baby in tow. The cashier was ringing her up and she kept looking at the register, almost watching to make sure she had enough money. The cashier finishes and as expected, the young woman appeared not to have enough money to get all that she needed (and there was nothing in her bags that was not necessary).

She looked up at the cashier and almost in a whisper said, “I’m going to have to remove some items, I don’t have enough money.” We could see the distress in the young woman’s face. All of a sudden without hesitation my brother pulled out his card and slid it through the machine and paid for her groceries. I can’t remember now how much it was, but the look on the young woman’s face was that of total gratitude and amazement. We all stood there in total awe. The young woman told my brother she couldn’t let him do that, and my brother just told her “Happy Thanksgiving”. Everyone had tears in their eyes (including the cashier).

The woman went to leave and turned around and thanked my brother yet again. Afterwards the cashier told us that the young woman “really struggles” every week to get what she needs and that she had never seen anyone do such a kind act.

We said an extra prayer that Thanksgiving Day for that young woman and her family. I have always been proud of my brother, but witnessing that Random Act of Kindness was more than I could ask for on a day of giving thanks and it made me prouder than I could say.

So, as my way of giving back and thanking him for doing such an amazing Random Act of Kindness, I offered to take some “family” photos that day after Thanksgiving, which they used for their Christmas cards. Here are some of those photos.












Now make sure you go and check out all the other amazing entries at I Heart Faces.

16 comments:

CUETO said...

I remeber that day and I got tears in my eyes again, the girls baby was so cute, I hope she is doing well wherever she is.

Unknown said...

Thank you for sharing your story

SarahinSC said...

That story gave me goose bumps! What a wonderful selfless act of kindness!

Anonymous said...

Oh this just makes me all teary!! What a BEAUTIFUL story!

I've had the pleasure of doing this once before for a little mexican lady in front of me at WalMart. She spoke no english, and I spoke no spanish, but when she was short money and was having to put stuff back, and then count out CHANGE to pay for what she had, God prompted me to pay for it. Now, we live paycheck to paycheck and some weeks are SLIM pickins' at our house, but God has always provided for us!

So when God said "PAY" I paid, and gladly. The lady was SHOCKED and didn't quite understand, but when she figured it out, she looked at me with tears running down her face. I told her God told me to do it for her.

Gosh I love hearing this stuff!

Adrienne Zwart said...

I love this story--what a blessing!

angie {the arthur clan} said...

This story made me cry...what a lovely thing to do!

This story has also now been featured on our Facebook Fan Page for all of our fans to be blessed by. :)

Thank you for sharing,

-Angie
co-founder of IHF

More Than Words said...

Oh my gosh, this makes me want to cry!! That young lady will never forget that. What a blessing your brother was to her that day!!!!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Elisabeth Joy Photography said...

what a wonderful story!

Mrs Mar said...

WOW, what a wounderfull story. If there were just more people like your bother out there.

fowler said...

Wow-- that's awesome! What a great reminder that there are people struggling and we can help.

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful story. Thanks for sharing. :)

Marla @ www.asthefarmturns.wordpress.com

Unknown said...

Oh, that there were more people like that in our world! Thanks to your brother for showing love in action to the struggling mama. Thanks for sharing this beautiful story. :)

Jaden Paige said...

That is such a touching, amazing story... Your brother has such a giving soul! I would have been proud, too. Thanks for sharing! :)

Anonymous said...

HOw sweet! Love it!

Crystal said...

Beautiful story. Thank you for sharing.