Yesterday on my way home from work, I stopped by the house I pet-nanny for and fed all the fur babies. It required I take an alternate route home along a road that connects the two main roads on my island. Since the hurricane, FEMA has been picking up yard debris, and yesterday was this road's turn. A man with an orange reflecting vest stopped me for the front end loader to pick up debris. As we talked for a few minutes, he asked me to be patient. When I replied with "Of course," he said I would not believe the profanity he had heard that day. He was not from here, but from east Tennessee and is a retired fire department batallion chief. In talking, I told him I could not believe people were harassing him for HELPING US. Just because they were "inconvenienced" for a few minutes. We got into a discussion about how that is such with our society. When he was a fireman, he had people thank him for saving their homes, but then they asked what took them so long. We have an element---a large element---of society that wants-what-they-want-when-they-want-it.
As our conversation came to a close, I told him most people were very happy to have the help from other states; we wouldn't be where we are now, nearly three weeks later, without it. When the community was feeding the linemen at Beaufort High, I told him I made several batches of cookies. I felt it was the least I could do. He told me, "Sister, you'll be rewarded for that one day." Then, "Have a blessed day, Sister."
That has stuck in my mind. Hebrews 13:2 began resonating with me: "2Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it."
Was he merely an angel from east Tennessee who came to help put our county back together? Or, was he a heavenly angel? Either way, I hope I took the sting off the nastiness he experienced yesterday.
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