Kindness of a Stranger

This is kind of a long and winding story to get to the kindness-of-a-stranger part, but bear with me. It's a good one.

I've been redoing my bathroom {which is taking forever, by the way -- ugh}, and part of that involves getting a new shower curtain. I have a cute one* now, but I'm just ready for a change.

*Anyone want it, by the way? I'll part with it for $10 -- I paid around $50 for it after using a BB&B coupon. It's in great condition!

So anyway. I found this lovely shower curtain, and it stole my heart. Click through for source.

But alas, it's way over priced. I can't spend almost $100 on a shower curtain (after tax and shipping)! So I put out a plea on facebook:

And someone did!

So this random stranger, whom I've never met, offered to purchase the shower curtain for me with her employee discount. How nice of her! With tax and shipping, I paid her $53. A lot, but less than I could've hoped for on my own -- and about what I paid for my current shower curtain.

But THEN, after I had already paid her, she found a $25-off-$50 coupon. She managed to use it on the order, gave me my check back, and asked for a new one -- for only $28.

What! Are you kidding me?! That's the price of a Target shower curtain. Amazing! 

So my new shower curtain has been ordered, and I'm excited. But more than that, I've really been thinking a lot about the kindness of people. Black Friday* is just around the corner, and I hate how it seems to bring out the worst in people -- selfishness, greed, envy, the works. It'd be easy to focus on that and how awful people can be. BUT -- people can be so kind, too. We're capable of evil, but we're capable of such good. It's a crazy world we live in -- full of light and dark and good and bad and everything in between. The juxtapositions can be staggering at times.

This stranger offered to help me, though she knew me not. And I've even thought about how she could've just kept my $53 check and made $25 on the deal -- I never would've been the wiser.  I'm thankful for her kindness, and it's made me want to pay it forward -- to look for ways to bless people, even {especially?} people I don't know.

So that's my story about a stranger's kindness to me. I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving, friends. Even in this crazy world, we have much for which to be thankful! We're heading to WV today to be with Wes's parents for the weekend. I'm looking forward to it. I hope your holiday is refreshing!

*PS: I'm not against Black Friday shopping at all -- I just hate how crazy people can act! I haven't decided if I'm going this year or not. Are you??