An encounter at a gas station written by Nicole Marie Heintz and shared by Love What Matters is spreading like wildfire as it reveals the very depths of God’s compassion and His contagious love.
Warning: You’re gonna wanna have a full Kleenex box close by for this one:
So I was just on my way to work and I had to stop for gas so I allowed myself some extra time to get to work. When I pulled up to the pump I shut my car off and saw this middle aged man crying looking at the gas pump. I began to wonder what happened with this man and as I got out of my car and looked at him my heart felt like it stopped.
In Apple Valley, Minnesota it is 10 degrees and freezing cold with the wind. This man was wearing flip flops with socks covered in holes. I look at his car and see his wife in the front seat covering her face in her hands and the 2 teenage girls both cuddling under a blanket in the back seat.
I didn’t even think and I went up to the man and said ‘sir is something the matter?’ He looked at me and I could tell he was on the verge of giving up because he didn’t even try to conceal his tears when he said ‘I can’t even provide for my family.’
Without even thinking I put my card in his machine and told him Jesus Christ the Son of God died to provide for you. Fill up. Something, something came alive in him. He was in shock and it was like he forgot how to pump gas.
In that same moment his wife got out of her car, she asked her husband what was going on and he told her I just payed for their gas she started to cry and came around the corner to shake my hand when I saw her pants dirty and torn. I asked her to come to my car.