| Tuesday, July 29, 2008 |
| grace. |
I tapped my Ezilink card against the card reader on bus number 518.
PIPIPIPI! It protested.
Dismayed, I glanced at the card reader: -$0.89.
Great. I unzipped the coin compartment on my wallet, and my heart sunk a little further. The compartment, which normally bulged with coins of all denominations, was at half its normal volume today. Clumsily I fished out coins, conscious of the driver's consternation. There was another SMRT Bus staff there too, and I was conscious of his gaze upon me as well.
I dropped what I thought was $1.20 into the coin slot.
"Where do you want to go?" asked the bus driver.
"Err....Tan Tock Seng there," I mumbled.
"Then you need $2.30. You only have $1.10 inside."
"Jialat, got not enough coins," I said.
I was already feeling bad. Not only had I failed to realise that I had not enough value in my Ezilink card, I had counted wrongly and had only put in $1.10 into the coin slot.
"Change coin lor," the bus driver said. I sensed his impatience.
I slipped out a two-dollar note from my wallet and scanned the bus. Only a few passengers. Damn. I hate having to do this. Besides, how many of them are going to have exactly two dollars in change?
Just then, the staff member who had been standing quietly by spoke up.
"How much more do you have in coins?"
I tipped out the few remaining ten-cent coins onto my palms and counted slowly.
"Here, I have sixty cents," said the man. It was then that I looked at his face properly. He was thin and short, and lines framed his mouth and eyes. But his face was open and kind.
"You don't have change for two dollars?" I said, feebly waving my note a bit.
He shook his head.
"Take it," he said, thrusting his hand toward me.
"Thank you," I said, and took his coins.
"No problem," he said.
As I walked to find a seat after paying, the bus lurched and I fell toward a row of seats, knocking my knee against one of them.
The man turned around immediately. "Be careful!" he said. Not in consternation but in concern.
I slumped into a seat, feeling somewhat lousy. Even though it was only a small incident. I can't help myself, I get affected by silly things like this sometimes.
Then it hit me.
This is grace.
Unmerited, undeserved, unearned grace.
Grace that does not ask for anything in return, grace that gives freely. Grace that is gentle and kind, that does not judge. Grace to the one who does not deserve it. Grace to the one who was first in the wrong.
After a while, the man got off the bus quietly.
Grace that is not proud, that does not seek glory for itself.
I felt a tinge of regret that I had forgotten to look at his name tag.
Daddy, bless this kind man, I thought.
And thank You for Your grace.
He is in all the little things. Even in the paltry offering of sixty cents from the hands of a kind stranger. |
posted by esther @ 6:19 PM  |
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| 1 Comments: |
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His love is in the details (:
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His love is in the details (: