Potting Soil

It was a beautiful Saturday. After a long time apart, the man and his wife anticipated the day, eventually deciding it was a perfect day to buy flowers for their garden.

It had been a long time since the lady had had energy enough to plant flowers. Much had been going on in various aspects of her life and there just had not been time to do such things. Her winter garden, sadly, had been without color. She was hopeful, however, that spring would sprout new enthusiasm for planting, and was heartened by the fact that her husband would be by her side to help with the task.

Home Depot was a busy place. And it was hard to find just the right flowers. The lady was starting to feel overwhelmed and grumbled to her husband that she just couldn't manage sorting through all the plants. Eventually they did find the plants and potting soil and then noted the very long checkout lines. Thinking they would be clever, they went inside to buy the plants; but the lines were just as long. Then they realized the “self-checkout” line was open and a worker beckoned them to come over. The worker helped them ring up their selections. When it came time to pay, the lady fumbled with the machine. A tall man they recognized came up and offered, “Push debit.”

“No, no,” exclaimed the lady, “I have a credit card.”

“This is how you do it,” the tall man said as he pushed his own card into the machine, and took the receipt that popped out. “I'm having a very good day today and I'm going to buy your flowers for you. Happy gardening!”

The Home Depot worker stood by, her mouth wide open. Most certainly she had never seen anything like that happen before. The tall man went on to explain that he thought he was going to need to spend $300 on pool repairs that very morning but, instead, found he only needed a $3 part. God's sense of humor in it all was that the plant bill was $30, so it seemed a sort of tithe on the money that never needed to be spent on the pool repairs that day.

The tall man then said he had to get going and told the man and lady to enjoy their planting. And they did. For the not-so-pleasant task the lady had anticipated had now become quite pleasant. As she knelt in the soil and dug in her plants, she remembered the generous, tall man and thanked God for the lesson about grumbling and generosity. She also hoped the tall man's children knew what kind of a dad they have.