Brother Tim Olds
Ward Clerk
How are you?
I’m sure the man behind the cash register had already asked dozens of people this question that day. It was a small gas station, and I was just trying to hurry and buy a water bottle and get back to my car. But this routine question--this time--was different. He could not have known how much I needed to hear those simple words.
He couldn’t have known I had pulled into this gas station because I couldn’t see the road through my tears.
He couldn’t have known how much pain I was in or how hard it was for me to find the strength to come inside.
He couldn’t have known how it hurt me when everyone else in the gas station avoided eye contact with me and my tear-streaked face.
“How are you?” he asked me, with genuine concern in his eyes and voice. I tried to muster up a grateful smile as I fought back the new tears that were forming in my eyes--these ones, tears of gratitude.
“I’m OK,” I answered, honestly. Because now that someone had been kind enough to notice me and my struggle, I did feel OK.
Sometimes it is the little things that we do that make a big difference to others.
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