Grateful

My mom and I were out the other day enjoying one of our favourite hobbies, thrift shopping. As we waited in line, the thunder started clapping outside and we knew it was a matter of a few minutes before the heavens opened up. Sure enough, it started pouring down before we got outside.I overheard a lady about my age who was standing behind us in line. She was reminding her little granddaughter that they were walking and she didn't know what they were going to do now that it was raining. I turned and asked her if I could take them home. She told me they were visiting from Crestview and were planning to go to the water park. They had taken the bus to Niceville and were just going to spend the afternoon hanging out around town. She said it would be nice if I could take them to the water park and she could wait under a shelter until the rain stopped.We managed to load her two big suitcases and 2 garbage bags of toys she'd bought into my little car and were on our way. I heard her whisper to the little girl, Rosie, "I know we don't know her but she seems nice and I don't think she's going to kidnap us." (Insert smile:)On the short ride to the water park, Rosie asked lots of little girl questions. The first one I couldn't really hear, but I did hear Grandma respond by saying that they would have to wait for Grandpa to get paid; hopefully he would get paid in the next day or two. Then she asked Grandma if she could get a car like this one. And Grandma quickly replied, "Oh, Rosie, Grandma could never afford a car this nice."I tried to pretend I didn't hear that comment. The one that made me shrink in my seat as God brought to mind the past few weeks of my complaining about my "nice car". The one that has almost 100,00 miles on it. The one that the spoiler on the back has paint that is peeling and that's embarrassing. And I don't really like the color. And I've always been resentful that it's not the car I really wanted, but it was the more affordable option at the time. It doesn't have a sunroof, which I miss every time I drive it. It's a stick shift, which is fine most of the time, but it's really inconvenient when trying to teach kids how to drive. Yes, the "nice car" that Grandma could never afford.(originally posted July 2013)