Luke 10:29 “And who is my neighbor?”
Oh no! We were ten miles away from the Allentown airport when the battery light on the car started to flash. We literally coasted into a gas station directly across from the airport before it died completely. My husband offered to pay a man at the gas pump to take my mom to the gate where she was to catch her flight. “No problem. My wife is headed there right now to return a rental car,” he replied. That was only the beginning…
For the next two hours that family (husband, wife, son, and cousin) stuck by our side—in the cold, icy rain—trying to help us. It soon became obvious we would have to get towed seventy miles back to our mechanic’s garage. But rather than leaving us, the family insisted on staying until the tow truck arrived. So there, in the warmth of their running car, we waited and exchanged stories. All I could think of was how do they have the time to do this? We’re strangers, we barely speak the same language (they were Hispanic), yet here they are showing us such kindness.
I’ve thought a lot about the parable of the Good Samaritan since that night…of the priest and Levite who passed by the man who had been robbed, beaten, and left on the road to die. Life was about them. They had places to go and people to see. I bet they were busy. I bet their lives were full of sentences with no commas, too full to be interrupted. Probably not a lot different from mine.
Not so, though, with the Samaritan. And not so with these dear folks. Because of the time they took for us on that cold wintery night, our lives were touched. Changed. Challenged…to slow down and consider God’s undeserved mercy. Mercy reflected by those
Samaritans on the loose.