“Have a good day. Thanks for the ride.” Danielle kissed John on the cheek and stepped out of the car. She shut the passenger door, about to open the back door to retrieve her bag, but John drove off. She jumped and waved, but he sped away without looking back. Her heart sank. Now what was she going to do?

            She hurried inside the building to her desk. She dialed John from her desk phone, but it went straight to voicemail. What else could go wrong this morning? She buried her face in her hands.

            “Everything OK?”

            Danielle glanced up at her coworker Lottie. “Not really.”

            Lottie beckoned her with a finger. “Come on.”
            “Where are we going?”

            “To the break room. You need a cup of coffee.”

            “I can’t take a break. I’m late as it is. And…”

            “You won’t get anything done until your head is in a better place. Don and Charles are in a meeting until 10:00, so they won’t notice you’re late. Come tell me what’s going on, and maybe I can help you.”

            Danielle followed Lottie to the break room and accepted the cup of coffee she poured for her. She heaved a sigh and launched into her frustrating morning. “First, my car wouldn’t start, so I needed a ride from John. But that made John late, so he was rushing to get to work and drove off with my bag in his car. I tried to call him back, but he didn’t pick up.”

Lottie’s forehead wrinkled. “What did you have in your bag that you need?”

            “My phone, my laptop, and my lunch.”

            “Oh, so basically everything you need to do your job.”

            “Exactly.” Danielle threw her hands in the air.

            “They might have an extra laptop. Why don’t you go over to IT and ask them?” Lottie patted Danielle’s shoulder. “And you could always grab a sandwich at the shop down the street. Lots of people do that.”
            Danielle’s anxiety lessened. If she could get another computer, she could log onto the network and still do her presentation this afternoon. “You’re right. Thanks for calming me down. I’ll head over to IT to get another laptop.”

            Lottie grinned. “Glad I could help.”

            The day went from bad to worse. Yes, she got a spare laptop from IT, but on the way back, she ran into a coworker in the hallway who splashed coffee all over her white blouse. She’d only saved the latest copy of her presentation on her desktop, not on the network, so she had to spend hours getting it ready. That meant there was there was no time to walk to the sandwich shop, even if she had the money to buy something, which she did not, since her wallet was in her bag. By the time she got to the presentation, she was stained, hungry, and frazzled.

            Afterwards, her head pounded. The presentation had not gone at all the way she’d hoped. What if she lost her job over this? At least the day was over. John would pick her up soon and they could go home and get something to eat. She approached her desk and saw the blinking light. A message. She picked up the receiver and punched in her pin code.

            “Hey, honey, I’m so sorry I missed your message this morning. I hope you managed OK without your bag. I wanted to let you know I’ll be late tonight. Bill wants me to have dinner with him and a couple of clients. Can you ask Lottie to drive you home? I’ll be in a meeting until about 5:30, and then we’re leaving from there. Call me before 4:30 if there’s any problem and I’ll work something out.”

            Danielle glanced at the clock. It was after 5. Lottie would be gone by now. In fact, most everyone would be gone by now. She racked her brain for anyone who might still be at work that she’d feel comfortable asking for a ride and came up empty. Could this day get any worse? Without her wallet, she couldn’t even pay for a ride. It was only about three miles to home. Guess she’d be walking. At least she had nothing to carry. She glanced outside. The sky was gray, but hopefully, the rain would hold off until she got home. Better get started. She grabbed her jacket and made her way to the door. When she reached the edge of the business park, an older lady approached.

            “I’ve never seen you walking here before.”

            Danielle blinked. “No, I usually drive home. This is just one more terrible thing that happened to me today.”

            The older lady raised her eyebrows. “Nothing terrible about walking. I do it all the time. I’m walking to town.”

            Danielle studied her companion. Maybe having company on her walk wouldn’t be such a bad thing. “May I join you?” She extended her hand. “I’m Danielle.”

            “Call me Anna.” Anna fell into step beside Danielle. “Do you want to tell me about what made your day so awful?”

            Danielle opened her mouth, about to recite all the problems of her day, but something in Anna’s expression changed her mind. Anna kept a steady pace as they made their way down the street, but one leg turned in awkwardly. “No, I don’t need to go into it. Is your leg bothering you?”

            Anna glanced down, as if surprised by the question. “Oh, that’s been like that my whole life. I’ve a bit of a limp.”
            “Does it hurt?”

            “Not too much.”

            This woman walked three miles every day with a deformed leg? She must do it in the morning, too. “Do you walk back and forth to work every day?”

            “No other way of getting there.”

            “There’s not a bus?”

            “Now why would I pay for bus fare when I can get there on my own for free?”

            Danielle had no answer. She’d never given a second thought to making a car payment each month, or of filling the tank with gas. She’d never considered taking the bus or walking. Today was, in her normal life, a huge inconvenience. Up until she’d met Anna, she thought God was punishing her with everything that had gone wrong today. Now, however, she was having second thoughts.

            “How long have you been making this walk?”

            “Oh, about seven years now. Just since my Richard passed away. We didn’t have too much saved, and what we had went to his medical expenses. So I took on this other job.”

            Danielle blinked. “Other job?”

            Anna shrugged. “Sure. I clean the office buildings during the day, come home, feed Felix and Oscar, my cats, and then mind the corner store in the evenings.”

            Danielle’s mind spun. This woman had to be her grandmother’s age. How could she keep such a schedule?

            Anna seemed to sense Danielle’s disbelief. “The Lord has been mighty good to me. He blessed me with 40 wonderful years of marriage to Richard, and when I needed the money, he gave me two jobs close enough to walk to. Yes, ma’am. I’m mightily blessed indeed.”

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

God, Thank You for taking care of our needs. Please help us put things into perspective. Sometimes we forget how easy we have it when others have to deal with much more challenging circumstances. And sometimes, You allow us to go through difficult things to teach us a lesson. Please help us see what You want to teach us. And help us show kindness to others whenever we have the chance. In Jesus’ name, Amen.