I’m pretty sure that we’ve all found ourselves at the grocery store — at our wit’s end. Dealing with cranky children, a heavy cart, a tighter budget, and little time to actually get any shopping done is pretty much a recipe for stress. One mom from Columbia, South Carolina knows all about this shopper anxiety. Ashley Jordan was already at the end of her rope before she even made it to the checkout line. But to her surprise, she would receive an act of kindness that would make all the difference.
At the local Walmart with her husband and 1-year-old daughter, they were putting as much stuff in the cart as her husband’s income would allow. A stay-at-home mom, Ashley shares her experience in a Facebook post. “It was another dreaded shopping trip trying to buy groceries for a family of five,” she says. “My husband’s whole check goes to food.”
As Ashley and her husband placed their groceries on the belt, their daughter started getting fussy. “[She] was tired and just wanted to go to sleep,” Ashley shares. She noted that while many times cashiers don’t engage much in conversation, this lady was not only friendly — but also observant. Cashier Sharnique Dasant remarked that they must have a big family since they were buying so much stuff.
Ashley shares, “She told me my total and I was digging through my wallet trying to count all of my money out. She gave me a smile and said, ‘You guys look like you need a blessing tonight.'”
Ashley remembers smiling at Sharnique before the cashier walked around the counter and started hitting buttons on the keypad. Ashley thought she was entering a coupon code of some sort, but when Sharnique walked back to the register, she looked at the new total and was at a loss for words.
Sharnique had paid for half of their groceries out of her own pocket. Ashley gushes in her post, “I was in complete shock because I never expected anything like that to ever happen.” Most often, blessings make their way to you when they’re least expected. This was definitely the case for the Jordan family that night.
Ashley’s social post ended with a heartfelt thanks to Sharnique, the kind cashier that put faith back into their hearts (and ours, too!). Ashley moves us all to tears when she states, “At that moment we both knew things were going to be OK because there truly are good people out there.”
Sometimes, even a frazzled trip to Walmart can uncover a blessing in disguise. Thank you, Sharnique, for reminding us all how with one simple (yet, extremely generous!) act, ordinary people can make an extraordinary difference in the lives of others.