A young woman’s amazing act of kindness at a gas station went viral.
Nicole Marie Heintz shared her incredible encounter on Love What Matters’ Facebook page, explaining that she was on her way to work when she stopped to get gas. While at the gas station, she saw a man crying and staring at a gas pump.
“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,” she wrote.
“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.’”
Heintz decided to help out by buying the man gas, and told him that “Jesus Christ the Son of God died to provide for you.”
“Something, something came alive in him. He was in shock and it was like he forgot how to pump gas,” she wrote.
“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 [paid] 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.”
She brought the woman to her car and told her to pick clothing out of a pile that she planned to give away.
“This lady RAN back to her car. I was so afraid I had just [embarrassed] her but a moment later her and her two girls were digging through those clothes layering my sweatshirts and shirts and sweat pants over the worn out clothes they had been wearing,” she wrote.
“Soon the father had finished pumping the gas and came over. This attracted a little crowd at the gas station. And some older man gave the family a gift card and another middle aged man gave away his jacket to the father. Never in my life did I think I would see this kind of thing happen at a gas station with a handful of complete strangers.
But it gives me hope. That the love of God can be so contagious. That we are not alone in being the change we want to see in the world. That God’s love is greater than anything and we get to be a part of that love changing lives. And HE always provides!”
Heintz’s story quickly went viral, garnering more than 25,000 likes and 5,800 shares on Facebook.
“You were open to God and he used you to start a chain of blessings. How Wonderful for you as well as all the other people used in this. Thank You Lord!!!” one reader commented.
“It is wonderful to know that people still feel that it is God leading us to do well with our fellow man. What a coincidence you had clothes in the car for 3 woman, you did well my friend you did very well. God bless you and all those people that were in the giving mood! You helped a struggling family and I am sure made a big difference!
In a similar incident, a Massachusetts woman made headlines when she spent her lottery winnings to help a homeless man get out of the freezing cold and into a hotel room. Sofia Lorena spent $200 she won to help Glenn Williams, the New York Daily News reported. The woman even started a crowdfunding campaign to help him get on his feet.
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