I was in the
grocery store standing in the checkout line, a man was standing behind me
holding an orange wallet, obviously a woman’s wallet and I wondered about it. I wondered why he had a woman’s orange
wallet, I wondered why he didn’t seem to care and I wondered where his wife
was, surely coming around the corner anytime.
He placed his bag of sugar on the counter, the bag tore open and sugar
spilled out, he tried to brush it away but gave up on that. Just like he didn’t care about the orange
wallet, he didn’t really care about the spilled sugar. He was opening the orange wallet; his cards
slipped out and fell to the floor. He
reached down to pick them up and I wondered if I should help him or should I
say something, a joke maybe.
Somehow I
thought, no.
Now I was
paying for my groceries and about to lift the bags when he started talking, not
really to anyone. He said, 'my wallet was
lost but it was found intact.'
I thought, the orange wallet?
He went on to say
that everything was in it, all of his credit cards, all of his identification,
all of his loose papers and all of his money.
One thousand dollars, cash. We were all
listening, the clerk, the East Indian lady behind him and me.
He was pretty comfortable with this orange wallet, was this the one lost? At any rate the wallet had been found, someone had found it and turned it in completely
as it was. He wanted to give the person
who found it a reward but they hadn’t left a name and the police didn’t know or
wouldn’t say. The person had found it in
a recycling bin at the recycling depot.
I asked 'how do you think it got there?'
He said he thought it probably slipped out of his pocket into a bag he
was taking to the road.
From what I had witnessed earlier, I nodded in
agreement.
How amazing
that there are honest people, considerate and humble and willing to return lost
items...people who are steadfast and true to others in their world, people who
are not looking to their own gain at the expense of another’s loss...honest
people, heroes really.
He was
amazed, we all were, but here is the part that stood out.
When he
realized his wallet was gone, he searched the house, looking everywhere, madder
than a hatter. His wife had asked him if
he had prayed. He said to us, that he
told his wife, “Don’t’ be ridiculous, God does not care about some fool who
lost his wallet!” She had replied with “well
then I will pray.”
Four hours
later he got a phone call from the police, “Sir, have you lost a wallet?”
He didn't
know any of us, he didn’t know how we would respond but he didn't care...he was ‘out there’
talking about God, talking about praying and telling us about answered prayer.
I love that.
