This Sunday night, my wife and I graduated from a class called "Financial Peace University" given by a guy that you may or may not have heard about: Dave Ramsey. It's a great course, and it delivers on the promise of the name. I digress a bit here, but if you'd like to find out more about it, you can look up the info at www.DaveRamsey.com. Also, in the near future, we plan on holding this course through our real estate business. Shoot us an e-mail if you're interested...okay back to the point of the e-mail!
This blog is about Skip. I'm getting to him, I promise...
The last class in FPU is called "The Great Misunderstanding" and it's about GIVING money, which may at first seem counter-productive to having Financial Peace, but I assure you that it DOES give you peace. Anyhow, one of the questions during the discussion portion of the class REALLY got to me. The question was: "Has anyone ever surprised you with a meaningful act of giving? How did that make you feel?"
It made me think of a very specific instance when I was in High School in College Station. Let me paint the picture: I'm living alone with my single Mom, we have one car (my beloved 1976 Jeep) between us, and we are pooling together our resources between her job and mine after school to pay rent, utilities, eat, etc--you know, the basics! I drove her to work each early morning, drove back to school, rolled my eyes through most of my classes (I was 17, a Senior, and knew pretty much everything), then went to work at the same place my Mom worked until we went home, had dinner and repeated the same process the next day. Well, we got by, but that was brought to a crashing halt when my Jeep stopped working one morning. The starter was out, and the repair was a few hundred bucks which we didn't have.
So, for the next few days, my Mom took the bus to work, and I walked to school (it wasn't too far, so put away the violins). I hitched a ride with a buddy to work after school, and my Mom and I were dropped off by a co-worker after the day--at least that's how I remember it, as it's been a while...
Back to the question: "Has anyone ever surprised you with a meaningful act of giving?" That same week, on a Saturday morning, I walked out of our apartment to find my Jeep hood up, and the Dad (this is the Skip of the E-mail's subject) of one of my school friends busily putting in a starter for our car. This man, a Department Head of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M, took it upon himself after hearing about our situation from his son to just do this for us. He refused any payment, and just said he was glad he could help. In fact, I'm convinced that if I didn't come outside early that day, I never would have known that it was him that fixed the Jeep for us.
Whoah. I'm still getting choked up just writing this. I thank God for Skip and think it's great (and somewhat humbling) that we live in a World with "Skips" in it. If you read this, and are a bit touched by his act, then I encourage you to pay it forward (to borrow a used phrase). Look for a way to bless the lives of others, anonymously if you can--and see how a meaningful act of giving will make you feel.