Grocery clerk's help is a true blessing

Pam White Martin's words continued to run through my head for days after I interviewed her a couple of weeks ago.

"In order to be blessed, you have to be a blessing," she said.

Pam, a local nail technician, tries to live by this philosophy, but specifically, she was referring to a service project with which she got her students involved. Pam teaches at a beauty school in Murfreesboro and had her students give free manicures and pedicures to eight residents of the local Next Step transitional home for women. In the end, everyone involved felt blessed.

"In order to be blessed, you have to be a blessing."

I think those are words that sound good to all of us and most of us probably want to live by that philosophy. But in the hectic craze of what we call life, how many of us actually live by that one simple sentence?

I'd bet the last person you would think to really "get" the meaning of this philosophy would be a young man who bags groceries for spending money. But Chris Morton might be just the person to prove you wrong.

On Christmas Eve day, I was returning home from a doctor's appointment in Murfreesboro when I made a quick stop at Food Lion to get just a couple of items for Christmas dinner I had forgotten to get the day before. I was through shopping in about 10 minutes, and that included a brief conversation with Ms. Shelly, manager, who was so kind to express her condolences about my father who recently passed away.

When I got home, I told my husband how nice people like Shelly make living in a small town.

I settled into my new recliner, popped in a movie and began to relax on this wonderful Christmas Eve when my phone rang. I didn't recognize the number and therefore didn't answer the call. The message was from Shelly at Food Lion. Since she knew I worked at the paper, she was able to track me down through a co-worker of mine.

Shelly's message indicated I had left my wallet at the grocery store. Oh, no! Can you say pregnancy absent mindedness?

I immediately set into panic mode before calling Shelly back. She was calm and told me not to worry. One of the store's grocery baggers had found my wallet in the cart outside the store, in the parking lot. He returned it to her.

To say I had valuables in my wallet was an understatement. Any day you lose your wallet is a bad day, but this day, the day before Christmas, was maybe the worst day ever to lose my wallet, since it contained much more of value than normal.

Chris Morton, the bagger, simply picked up my wallet and returned it to Shelly. I truly have no idea if Chris knows how much of a blessing he was to me that day. He really made my Christmas special, not only because he returned my wallet, but also because he made me think of Pam's words again.

"In order to be blessed you have to be a blessing."

Thank you, Chris, for blessing me on Christmas Eve, and for making me want to pay it forward and be more of a blessing to others.