My fiancé and I have been facing a huge decision for the last two weeks. I have been feeling a lot of different emotions, pretty much all the time: anger, hurt, and jealousy, primarily. I have also been doing a lot of crying, just because I cannot help it.

Yesterday, I picked him up from work, and we had just gotten home when he realized he forgot to return the building’s master key to his boss. We went straight back, and I parked outside the building while he got out and ran the key back inside, which was only going to take a couple of minutes.

As soon as he got out of the car, I began sobbing, which I had been trying not to do the whole car ride home and then back to his work. It was about 4:30 pm, so there were still people leaving the building. I looked up and saw a couple of guys walk back toward the building, and then I went back to crying.

I suddenly heard a knock on my window. I rolled it down and recognized one of the guys that had just walked past my car. I had never met him before.

He said, “Can I pray for you? What’s your name? I want to pray for you, if that’s okay.” I was speechless for a moment, and told him my name. He put a hand on my shoulder and we both closed our eyes and he began to pray for me. I’m not a super religious person — I have my own beliefs about it — but the fact that this person saw me crying and then doubled back from his own car to knock on my window filled me with an overwhelming sense of hope and, strangely enough, relief.

He left after a couple of minutes of praying, and my heart immediately felt lighter and the feelings I had been harboring all day vanished. As soon as he left, my fiancé came out of the building and returned to the car. This all happened within a span of not even five minutes.

I know that he probably won’t ever see this, but thank you, stranger, for praying for me. You helped give me the strength to get through this and the reassurance that I can get through anything. I needed it more in that moment than you can imagine.

(My parents and I stop by a fast food restaurant. After placing an order and paying for it at the window, my dad makes a comment to my mom about the worker’s dull attitude, and my mom tells him he should try to make her smile.)

Worker: *with a melancholy expression* “Here’s your food, sir.”

Dad: *as he takes the food* “My wife here told me she’d give me $100 dollars if I could make you smile, so how’s about we split it between you and me?”

(A huge, if somewhat embarrassed, smile flashed across her face, and it was a very pretty one, too! I thought it was adorable, and I hope it made her seemingly bad day a little better.)

I worked at a well-known chicken chain for a few years. Said chain pays above minimum wage, so we don’t take tips. Said chain also has a strong commitment to those in the military.

I am on front register one lunch time with a few of my coworkers. A family comes through my coworker’s register, and after he rings them up, the dad shows his military ID. Technically, we’re only supposed to do the half-off amount for the service member only, not the whole family, but my coworker gives it to the whole family, as it’s easier than canceling the dad’s meal and ringing it up by itself.

The family is stunned, and tries to tip him the balance, about $15. He refuses, because we’re not allowed to take tips. So, they give it to him to use for the next person who comes to that till.

The next person’s order is something around $8. As I’m ringing up another customer, I hear my coworker say, “Your total is $8, but the people ahead of you left enough money to pay for your order.”

“Really? In that case, take $15 and use it for the next person.”

It goes on like this for probably the better part of an hour. Over and over and over throughout lunch, I hear my coworker say, “The people in front of you left enough money to cover your food.” There must have been at least 30 orders before people stopped putting enough money in to keep it going, and the pot ran out.

After the lunch rush was over, my coworker and I looked at each other and agreed that that was one of the coolest things we had ever seen. Someday, when I am no longer dealing with student loans and such, I’d like to be able to start a chain like that.

(Our gas has been temporarily disconnected, as we’re getting a new boiler installed, so I pop to the fish and chip shop to get dinner for our family. I’ve not been in there before.)

Me: “Hi, can I have a standard cod and chips, please, a battered sausage and chips, and two fishcakes?”

Employee: “Of course, love. Any sauces?”

Me: “Oh, yes. Curry sauce, please.”

Employee: “Okay, coming right up.”

(She then scoops out the two standard portions of chips.)

Employee: “Salt and vinegar on these ones, love?”

Me: “Oh, yes, please, both on that one. Thanks.”

(I notice at this point that she puts another scoop of chips in the bag.)

Employee: “And the cod wrapped together?”

Me: “Yes, please.”

(She adds another scoop of chips, and wraps them up.)

Employee: “And on the second chips, salt and vinegar?”

Me: “Just salt please.”

(She adds another scoop of chips to this lot, as well. I think I can see what’s happening here.)

Employee: “And the battered sausage wrapped with these, fishcakes separate?”

Me: “Yes, please.”

(Another scoop of chips. She repeats my order back to me while wrapping the fishcakes and curry sauce cup.)

Employee: “Anything else for you tonight, love?”

Me: “No, thanks; that looks great. Thank you.”

(Another massive scoop of chips. She confirms what I suspected.)

Employee: “Just in case you’re wondering, every time someone says ‘please’ or ‘thank you,’ I give them another scoop of chips. The clever people like you work that out. Although I think you were brought up right; you say your ‘pleases’ and ‘thank-yous’ to everyone, I bet.”

Me: “What a great idea! It’s a shame that you have to reward people for what should be a common courtesy, but I’m glad it works for you. Goodnight, and thanks for all the chips!”

(Of course, I now had more chips than a family of four could possibly eat, but they did us until we got our gas turned back on the next day!)

In the early 90s, my mom’s car was broken into while she was at a music festival. The thief made off with all of her instruments, including the flute her father gave her over twenty years earlier when she was first learning. Naturally, she was devastated. She did manage to replace her instruments, and more or less put the experience behind her.

Ten years later, Mom was giving lessons at a music store. One day, she forgot her flute at home, and asked the owner if he could loan her a flute for the day so she could do her lesson. As luck would have it, someone had come in earlier that day and sold him a flute they’d found in a closet of the house they’d just bought. He reached behind the counter, and took out a case with a unicorn sticker on it. Mom immediately recognized the sticker, as she had that exact same one on her case. Excited, she took out the mouthpiece to check for the serial numbers her father had engraved in it. Unfortunately, they weren’t there. It wasn’t her flute.

Disappointed, she took the flute to her lesson room. As she was fitting the pieces together, she saw, on the middle section, a set of numbers. It was indeed her flute, and she’d simply mis-remembered which section had the numbers on it! As soon as her lesson was over, she went back to the owner, asked how much he’d paid for it, and told him she wanted to buy it.

Fifty dollars later, she was finally reunited with her flute. Since her father had died a year earlier, it was especially magical for her. Ironically, when he had engraved those numbers, she’d been upset since there was a sizable area where the silver had been stripped. But thanks to those numbers, the thief was not able to sell it, and simply left it behind when they moved, allowing it to make its way back to her.