Kicking Myself

It's hard to kick myself, but I am.
I keep a dollar bill in my car's faux ashtray to give to anyone I see standing on the side of the road. When I give it away, I quickly replace it to not be caught off guard the next time I see someone. I have even been known to hold up traffic so that I can slow down enough to roll down my window and give the person the money.

This past week I was leaving the Target in Liberty and a lady was standing at the stop light with a sign. Don't remember what the sign said, but she needed "help" and I wanted to help, but when I went to get the $ it was empty. EMPTY! as in NO MONEY to give.....I started scrambling through my car's console, and then the light turned green...and still no money......and I opened up my purse and then my wallet.....and found
A $10 BILL!!!
So what did I do?
I hesitated. I really wanted to HELP. But $10? My heart said GIVE but my head said "that's too much, you can't afford to give that much!"
Stupid head, I should have listened to my heart. Because, really? I can't afford to give $10? I had easily just blown $10 on things at Target that were un-necessary, but I couldn't give this lady that much to eat? pay bills?

I know, I know, there are many people that think my giving is just enabling a person to continue the cycle of addiction/homelessness etc....but my theory has always been this......Who am I to judge what a person spends their money on? I spend money foolishly all the time on things I shouldn't, so who am I to tell someone else what they can and can't do. It really doesn't matter to me if they are asking for $ to eat or $ to pay their Mercedes payment....the point is, they are standing on a curb in the hot/cold weather asking for help. My help. And that is just not a "normal" thing to be doing. It signals in my mind that they probably have some sort of a hardship, could be mental/physical/spiritual, who knows. Again, not my job to judge. I try and leave that to the Big Guy in heaven.

Consider yourselves warned. If you are behind me in traffic, and there is a person up ahead with a sign....I'm going to slooooowww down and hand them some money. It's totally okay if you don't agree with my thinking on this. I just know that I regret what I didn't do, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have even missed that $10 later.