The Journey Home-Finding Kindness at a McDonald's

Let me start off by saying that getting ready for the trip to Vermont was a marathon nightmare!  Laundry, packing, cleaning, making sure all the bills were paid before we left, stocking up on food for the animals, buying "road trip" food-lots of things to get done in a short time!  By the time we hit the road on Saturday I was exhausted and had managed to work myself into a full fibro flare-up.  Needless to say I was not at the top of my game!  Keep this in mind as I tell this story.

We also got a much later start than we usually do which meant driving late into the night.  We ended up stopping at a hotel that wasn't exactly a place I would have picked during daylight hours.  So we woke up in Ohio with lots of miles to go on a Sunday morning.  We decided to stop for a quick breakfast on the way so we picked a McDonald's just off of Interstate 70 at the London, Ohio exit.  One of the things I learned to appreciate on the road trip was knowing what to expect from the food that you ordered.  Maybe it's not original but at least you know what you're getting!

Anywho-on with the story!  I happened to be carrying my purse with me, something I don't normally do, but it gave me some extra space to pack a few odds and ends that we needed.  So when we sat down to eat I draped it over the back of the chair.  We ate, we got up, we left.  We made the connector to Interstate 71 and headed northeast and drove for about an hour and a half when we needed to stop for gas.  Everybody got out, did the mandatory bathroom run and we all got back in to the vehicle.  That's when I discovered that I didn't have my purse!  Pure total panic would be an understatement!  I went off the deep end!  Guess what direction we turned the Yukon towards?  Southwest towards London, Ohio!  The guys tried to assure me that someone probably turned my purse in and it was still safely there at McDonald's.  I wasn't so easily reassured! 

Turns out that the guys were right!  (Yes-mark it on your calender-I did make that statement!)  The young lady who was wiping down tables when we left was actually the manager.  She spotted it right away and tried to figure out a way to contact us but when she couldn't find a number, she locked it up in the safe!  Yes, I will never live this down and it is a story that will go down in our family folklore history but it's a story worth telling!

I immediately assumed the worse.  The guys assumed the best.  Why did I automatically assume the worst?  We hear so many stories today about people being swindled, people losing everything, be on your guard, etc. yet truth is, there are a lot of good and kind people out there all over the country who do the right thing regardless of circumstances!  There's a lesson in this, a lesson about the importance of looking for the best rather than expecting the worst!  I got a much needed mini-sermon reminder on that Sunday.  There is far more good in the world and I need to be actively looking for it every day!

Paul said in First Thessalonians 5: (The Message Paraphrase)

"Look for the best in each other, and always do your best to bring it out."

Sometimes we need to be reminded to do that very thing! 

And if you're ever on I-70 in Ohio and need a place to eat, swing by McDonald's in a little town called London!  They're good folk there, you'll like em!