Recently I had a really neat experience.  I was in the drive-through at Starbucks and when I got to the window I was told that my drink was free because the person in front of me had paid for it!  I didn’t know the person in front of me, they just decided to give me a little blessing for no other reason than that they had a giving heart.  I then purchased the person’s drink behind me and hopefully that chain continued on for a while.

The blessing was not the free coffee though (however free Starbucks is always nice!).  The real blessing was that it calmed my heart.  I don’t have a particularly rough commute, but I tend to be  a more aggressive driver than I should be and I get easily agitated while behind the wheel.  Believe me, God and I have had more than one discussion on this point.  But that person’s act of kindness took me out of my morning commute mindset and I found that I drove more slowly, didn’t follow as closely and let more people in front of me that normal.

Who knows what the real consequences of that person’s kindness was today.  Maybe if I was in my normal mindset I would’ve made a poor driving decision that caused an accident, worse that accident might’ve taken a life. 

Large terrible events take huge amounts of kindness and goodwill and hard work to overcome, and some may never be overcome.  Yet a surprisingly easy, cheap, and painless act of kindness might stop such an event before it ever begins.

If you have the opportunity to be kind, seize it with every last ounce of enthusiasm you can, you never know who’s day you might be changing, or what life you might be saving.