“Payday’s comin,’” people often say, when crossed. But what goes around doesn’t always come around quickly. Not even when what went around was a kindness, great or small. Too often, we (myself included) accept those without bothering to pay even a little gratitude back. As though we deserve them.
A few weeks ago someone passed on to the Preacher and I, through mutual friends, their tickets for Ballet Jorgen’s version of Cinderella.
We enjoyed the show, and I should have called to say thanks the next day. Or the next. But the time was never right. I didn’t have the phone number and couldn’t find it in the book. I knew where they worked, but didn’t want to call their business. Excuses, excuses. Before I knew it I’d flipped a page on the calendar.
My call, a month overdue, brought a gracious response that humbled me. They sounded tickled. As though they never expected thanks. That made me feel worse.
We all take our turns, don’t we? Giving and taking both good stuff and bad stuff. Being grateful and sometimes forgetting gratitude. But when genuine gratitude comes your way, it’s hard to forget. Our friends, Doug and Dawn Woods, know that well.
For several years the Woods, another clergy couple, managed Siloam Mission in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. That’s where Doug met a fellow in trouble with the law and ended up going to court with him as a character witness. Doug stood by him. Supported him emotionally. “It was a little thing,” he says now, “but he never forgot it.”
Doug and Dawn’s kindness to the man didn’t end there. He had no cable TV, but he loved football, so in the next few years, they often invited him home to watch football games. They didn’t do it for thanks – they did it for love. Jesus would do that, they figured. They love Jesus, so they did it too.
One day, when Dawn planned an out-of-province trip, the man called to wish her a safe trip. The first time he left a message. The second time, Doug picked up. He thanked his friend for the good wishes; told him how much they were appreciated. The man’s response, he recalls, blew him away.
“I respect you and Dawn,” their friend said. Then he added something Doug had never heard him say before. Something he never expected. “I love you and Dawn.” Doug says, “When I told Dawn this a few moments later…well, I lost it. I was not looking for this and certainly did not expect this. This is what I think people call ‘payday’.”
Doug likes to tell people who are serving in difficult places, as he and Dawn did for years, that “when there seems no response or appreciation, your day is coming...your payday. So hang in there. It will be worth it all.”
If you’re still waiting, listen to Doug. Every act of kindness done in Jesus’ name, God sees and blesses. That’s the best payday of all.
