It was one of the longest and hardest days of my life. Fired from his ministry for no stated reason, my husband found a church three states away. Unable to sell our home in time, we cleaned it the best we could and left it in the hands of a real estate agency.
As we left, pulling a U-Haul behind our mini-van, we felt like we were sneaking out of town in shame even though we had done nothing wrong. Only a few confused friends helped us pack. No one came to say good-bye that final morning. Weary and disheartened, my husband and I bit our tongues multiple times to keep from venting on each other.
Our plan was to meet my husband’s sister and mother part way for a final get together before we moved even farther from his family. It was a good thing we did, for 80 miles out of town, the transmission blew on our van. Forced to make tough decisions quickly, we opted to leave Jack and our 90 pound Labrador in a hotel while the transmission was fixed. I and the girls rode with Jack’s sister to her home in Atlanta. En route, we decided I would fly to Ohio the next day so I could meet the moving van. The girls would stay with Annie until Jack could get a rental car, pick them up and bring them on to Ohio.
God Met Our Need
Feeling weary beyond belief, displaced and unloved, we wandered into a Cici’s pizza at 9:30 that evening. The manager greeted us warmly. “It’s late,” he said. “I don’t have much pizza out, but eat what you want. If you want something that isn’t out there, I’ll make it up fresh for you.” His words seemed too good to be true. Would he charge us extra? We timidly asked if he could make a ham and pineapple pizza for us.”No problem,” he grinned, seeming in no hurry to put a sign on the door as the minute hand swung past the 10:00 closing time. Slowly, we felt ourselves relaxing and gain new energy and hope.
Finally we stood to leave. He hurried over. “Let me box the rest of that pizza up for you,” he said, handing my sister-in-law the bill. We were incredulous. Not only had he made extra pizza for us and ignored the closing time, he gave us a substantial discount. We had not told him our story of why we were there in the first place. He never knew how much two women and two young teenage girls needed someone to show some kindness to them that day.
But God knew. God must have whispered in his heart than some strangers would need several slices of kindness served up in the form of ham and pineapple pizza.
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