Originally published July 16, 2015

Did you see that homeless man on the corner?

The one who’d been there awhile.

The one who was hungry.

The one who, deep down, really didn’t expect that you’d give him anything today.

Is it possible that that homeless man could teach us how to grow rich?

For a while, a long time ago, we were a little hungry sometimes (not often). Not the ravenous “I need something–anything to eat!”–kind of hungry, but just the “Gee, hamburger meat would be soooo good…but it’ll have to wait ’til payday” kind of hungry. The kind where you really crave red meat sometimes but just can’t afford it (which, to most of the people in this world, wouldn’t really be considered hungry at all!)

Anyway, it was during that time that I drove my three small children into town one day, parked my car at the local grocery store, and picked a shopping basket out of the parking lot. As we were walking towards the entrance of the store, we passed a small, old, very clean pickup truck with a camper on the back. In the window was a cardboard sign: “Hungry. Will work for food.” Now, strange as it may seem, that sign wasn’t the thing that had the biggest effect on me. It was the camper itself.

See, that camper had windows. And in those windows, I could see that that camper held everything a person needed to live. Utensils, tools, engine oil, plates, a drinking cup, a razor, a toothbrush–everything most people would have in their bathrooms, garages, or kitchens, this man had in his camper. And everything–I mean everything–was neat as a pin. All lined up, on shelves, in the windows of his camper. With the sign in the back corner, telling the world that this camper WAS his home. This man cared. It wasn’t that he wasn’t trying–goodness; he took better care of those little things in his camper than most of us take of our flat-screen TVs and X-Box games. But, still, even though he was obviously a diligent person, he was there. In the parking lot at Hitchcock’s. With a sign.

That really got through to me. So, out of the money that we had for groceries that week, while we were in the store, I bought him a big bag of apples and the biggest jar of peanut butter I could afford.

My goodness. You should have seen the look on his face. His cheeks were sunken in, but when I gave him the apples and peanut butter, it made him so happy–as happy as I would have been at that time if someone had given me free groceries for my family for life!
He said, “Thank you so much. God bless you, ma’am.” And he really, really meant it.
I said, “God bless you, too, sir–it’s no problem; that’s what we’re here for–to help each other.”
He nodded his head and looked down, and he said, “Yes, but some people don’t know it.”

I felt badly about that. Partially because of how he had been treated, and partially because I knew that the “some people” were sometimes…well, me.

It happened again, much the same, about two months ago. We had just finished getting some things we needed at our local Winn-Dixie. As we pulled out of the parking lot, there was traffic, so we were behind a line of cars. On the right, a man sat on the curb next to a bicycle with a basket on it. His cheeks were sunken in, and he was bone-thin and tanned from being outdoors with no shelter from our blazing Florida sun. He was unshaven, and he kept his head down. His shoulders were slumped. On his bicycle was a cardboard sign that said “Painter for hire”.

We got out of line and went back into the store. By this time, we were in a much better place financially (thank You, Lord!), so we were able to do more. My daughter and I tried to think of what someone who had to be outdoors all day in the summer in Florida would want. We bought some groceries, and I put some money in with them, and we took them out to him.

I’ve never seen a more grateful person in my life. He was so happy–he must have said, “Thank you,” at least ten times. And when he saw that there was a bag of oranges in one of the bags, he lit up like a little boy under a Christmas tree. He said, “Oh, I love these–but they’re just so goldarned expensive, I can’t get them!”

I remember thinking he was as grateful for those groceries as I would have been if I had hit the lottery.

Which brings me to my point. Who’s richer–the man who has very little, but is grateful for every little thing he has?

Or the one who seems to have everything–but who always wants more?

People teach us about who they are by their responses to charity, but they also teach us about who we are.

How happy would we be–how much richer would we be-if we were so grateful for apples and peanut butter that we smiled from ear to ear and exclaimed, “God bless you!” every time someone gave us some?

How much wealthier would we be if we considered a bag of fresh oranges a wonderful blessing and thanked God–really thanked Him–each time a bag of those oranges was placed before us?

We never know–it might be true that some people without homes are homeless because they spent money unwisely or developed bad habits, as we often assume.

But it’s also true that all of us make mistakes. And, when it comes to gratitude, sometimes the people we would call “poor” are really far richer than most of the rest of us.