Hi Friend,

Today I thought I would share with you a funny true story about the man at the bus stop. It more appropriately is known as, “The Great Hamburger Story.”

My husband and I were out running errands when we decided that instead of going home to eat lunch, we would just drive through a local fast food restaurant to grab a bite to eat. We pulled up to the drive-thru and began looking at the menu trying to figure out what we wanted. I told my husband that I wanted their famous hamburger that came with lettuce, pickles, onions and tomatoes. When the guy that takes your order asked what we wanted, my husband ordered me the hamburger and got chicken nuggets and fries for himself.

We pulled forward, paid for it and got our order. To our surprise their were two whoppers along with my husband’s chicken nuggets and fries. We told the guy that we thought their was a mistake with our order because we had gotten an extra whopper. He told us that in fact the order was right because today they were running a special of “buy one, get one free” so the extra one was actually part of that special deal they were running. We were amazed, perplexed and happy about this freebie deal we had just received.

As we were pulling out of the fast food’s driveway, I was wondering why we had been blessed with a free whopper. If you know me, you know that I tend to think too deeply about things and over analyze their meanings. This is especially true when it comes to strange unexpected blessings that come our way.

So, as I was analyzing what had just happened, my husband was turning out of the driveway. I spotted a man standing on the sidewalk who appeared to be homeless. As we passed by him, I told my husband, pull-over, let’s give the extra whopper to that man. By the time I had asked my husband to pull over, we had already passed by the man and their was no way to pull over.  As my husband was driving on, I insisted that we needed to go back to give that man the extra whopper. My husband agreed and drove around the block so he had enough time to pull over by where the man was.

As we came around the corner, we spotted the man and my husband slowed down to pull over right next to him. I quickly rolled down my window so I could hand the whopper to the man. As I extended the whopper out of the window, I told the man, “Here’s a whopper for you!” He looked perplexed as to why I would be doing this for him and actually stepped backwards away from the car. I reached out further with the whopper in hand and asked the man, “DO YOU WANNA WHOPPER? Here, here’s a WHOPPER.”

He apprehensively walked over and accepted the hamburger with a simple “Thanks.” I told him, “Your welcome” and we drove off.

As we were driving off, my husband looked in the rear-view mirror and started laughing uncontrollably. While he was laughing he was able to get out, “We just pulled away from a bus stop!”. To my surprise, I looked back and saw a bus pulling up to where we had just been and the man with the hamburger getting on to the bus. I couldn’t hold back the laughter thinking about how I had just forced a whopper on the man at the bus stop. He wasn’t homeless after all! He was just a man waiting for a bus who probably is still wondering why I insisted on him taking this free hamburger.

I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I felt humbled and embarrassed for pre-judging someone that was just waiting for a bus. In my mind, I was for sure that this man was down on his luck and needed our helping hand and boy was I ever wrong. Don’t ever assume anything about anyone just because you think you have it figured out.

Whenever we think about “The Great Hamburger Story”, we still laugh about it.  It probably was a very awkward situation for the man at the bus stop. I still feel bad about how it must have made him feel. All I can hope for, though, is that maybe he was hungry at that moment in time and that the hamburger somehow did bless him. Who knows? What I do know … is the next time I get inspired to do something crazy like that again, I will make sure that the person is NOT just waiting for a bus. That definitely leads to one embarrassing moment.

Has anything like this ever happened to you? I would love to hear your stories. Just leave a reply below and remember, as always, no matter what, don’t lose faith and never give up.

However, always be sure of your surroundings.

Your Friend,

DL Faith