And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.
– 2 Corinthians 9:8
At first glance, the teenager didn’t seem to have “an abundant life.” Her family relationships were shattered. She was nearly broke. She was working at 7-Eleven. What did she know about living an abundant life? More than she realized.
Nearly four years ago, 19-year-old Ava Lins began a typical convenience store conversation with a customer in Salem, Massachusetts. But at one point, he mentioned he didn’t know where he was going to be sleeping that night. It was freezing outside.
Wow, could she ever relate. The year before, Ava spent cold winter nights sleeping in her car. “I was thrown out of my mom’s house and didn’t have a place to call home,” she said. So, what can a store clerk do in that situation, aside from offering comforting words? Ava said her empathy for the man “directly influenced my decision.”
She gave him a small cup of coffee. Free. After the kind gesture, the storeowner allegedly accosted the homeless man; skeptical about whether he paid for it. Ava lied and said he did. But the next day, she felt her boss should know the truth and confessed to paying for the $1 coffee herself.
What happened next? She says she was fired. Fired over a $1 coffee to a man who had nothing? What’s a teenager to do in the face of injustice? She did what any 19-year-old would do these days. She took to social media. After Ava spread the word about her firing, support came pouring in. One person wrote on her Facebook page that she was “a blessing from God doing what she did.”
She also received something else online. Job offers. One was from Citizens for Adequate Housing. Suddenly, Ava had a new job, working to “restore hope and dignity to homeless families”… just like she did for that man in her store. “What she was able to do with a simple cup of coffee… it was very inspiring,” said Corey Jackson, the Citizens for Adequate Housing Executive Director. “We want more of that in the world.”
It may not feel like we’re being showered with blessings every day, but when we take time to realize how much we’re loved by God – that He gave His only Son for us – we can become inspired to always bless others in their time of need. “I wasn’t expecting this position at all,” Ava said of her new job. “My lesson learned is that good deeds pay off.”
Ed Doney, Staff Writer
