Pennies aren’t worth much. In fact I wonder why we even still have them. They are only good for sales tax at the stores. But I will never forget the day that 33 pennies bought me two bags of food.
In 1991 I was living in Minneapolis and going to a bible college there. I was studying for the ministry. First semester I worked at Billy Graham’s ministry headquarters as a janitor in the evenings. But I could not work the buffing machine which was an important part of the job, so even though I got along well with everyone and showed up for work each day, they had to let me go. It was humbling to get fired as a janitor when only six months before I had left a promising career as a sales rep.
In December 1991, I was almost out of money. Things weren’t going well at all. I had 33 pennies, so I went to a convenience store to buy a package of Ramen Noodles to have a little to eat. While I was in the store, a man walked up to me and said, “You are a student at the college, right?” I told him I was, He said, “Let me buy you lunch.”
He bought me two bags worth of food enough for a week. When we went to the counter to pay, he handed the cashier the money. The cashier handed me the bags. It was only a matter of seconds from the time the cashier handed me the bag to when I turned to thank the man. He wasn’t there. I went outside to thank him. He wasn’t there. There was not enough time for him to walk away, run away, drive away, or anything. He simply wasn’t there as if he had never been there.
So I thanked God for the food and went to the apartment I was staying at. I also thought about Hebrews 13:
“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it”
I did not show the ‘man’ hospitality, He showed it to me by buying me food. But it definitely made me wonder that day about what had just happened.
Hope you have a blessed weekend. Thank you for reading. 🙂
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