Choices

I was thinking about choices today...

Driving home on Wednesday, my car loaded with food for my family's Thanksgiving feast the next day, I saw a middle-aged woman begging on a busy street corner. As the traffic light turned yellow, then red, I braced myself for the inevitability that my vehicle would stop right next to her. This made me very uncomfortable.

She held a cardboard sign. Neatly lettered, it read, "Family embarrassed but desperate. Anything appreciated. Please help. Thank you. God Bless." She watched me as I read the sign, then looked away as I sought to read her face. This exchange appeared to be painful for both of us. I continued to watch her, wondering how she came to be begging from me that day -- wondering whether I was supposed to help her.

The light turned green. My car began to creep forward. She turned and looked at me again. Eye to eye, we acknowledged one another. She knew I wouldn't be the one to stop and give her money that day. I knew she wouldn't be the last person I'd refuse to give money to on a street corner. She nodded. I nodded, then I moved along with the traffic.

As I drove on toward my home, I thought of the many things I'm thankful for in my life. Underlying the long list of blessings, however, was the constant awareness that I was most thankful not to be that woman. Should I have given her a loaf of bread? The last dollar in my wallet? Would it have helped her? I chose to believe that it would not. What choices did she make?

At some point or another, we've all made choices that carry us to the place we are today. I'll never know the series of events that led to her decision to beg on a street corner on a cold November morning, but I do know she had choices. She made a choice to stand there, and I made a choice to pass her by. And because of those choices, a part of our lives will forever remain in a moment on that street corner.

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