Has someone, outside your circle of friends and family, ever reached out to you?

Question

Sometimes, it is the things a stranger does for us which touch us the most.

Answer 1

I was stranded on the highway with a broken fan belt. A man who stopped to help drove me to the auto parts store and loaned tools for the repair.

He explained that he was a remorseful ex-con who was indebted to a lot of people for his redemption. In payment for his kindness he requested only that I assist someone else in need.

Over the last 40 years I have gladly repaid him many times under the same terms.

Kindness begets kindness.
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Answer 2

Yes. I believe the people at the hospital emergency room went the extra mile in saving my life when I had my first heart attack. I collapsed outside the hospital and someone noticed. I was unconscious so this is what I was told. Emergency room staff "swarmed to your side" (exact quote from a security guy) and immediately did their life saving stuff. Inside the emergency room I was shocked 11 times in order to get my heart started and this was on a Saturday night when they must have been busy. My doctor later told me that it must have been a slow night as they usually give up and pronounce someone dead after the third or fourth shock. I really don't know who all these people were but they really reached out and touched me - big time.

Answer 3

Yes, and early on with the admonition that KOHA received. Given the opportunity and means I try to repay in kind for that which I receive. No great acts of sacrifice or martyrdom but simple gestures of human kindness that cost you little in time or money and can mean so much to the recipient. I still feel guilt over the one time I failed to respond, like I had broken some long chain of karmic kindness. Even recently, I have been blessed by the actions of strangers and am in the red on the ledger book.

Answer 4

I have been blessed with the ability to reach out non-stop in my life. I was born to be a helper of my fellow man.

It does my heart such good to see others prosper, in many, many ways, after they have been down.

I have been put into positions in my working life, that are helping professions such as Case Manager for a Social Services Agency and a Workforce Development Employment Consultant and others that have given aide to those who are in dire shape in one way or the other. I get a really great blessing out of seeing other people get back on their feet.

Right now, I am coaching two persons who have diabetes and putting others back to workl

Life is great!

Answer 5

Yes, for help, and to help both.

And yes, the connection is phenomenal...when a stranger does something for us it is like a profound revelation about the inherant goodness in humankind.

But we get the most out of being that stranger who reaches out to someone, just because they can.

Like I said, I have done both...and it was my reaching out that had a more profound effect on my own psyche.

Answer 6

I've had contact with strangers that have helped but my son has a great story. He was hitchhiking from Mammoth Lakes, CA to Ventura and he didn't have much money. He thought his "friend" was taking him to Ventura but when they came to a junction, the friend said it was out of the way. My son was left at a gas station, with a little mini-mart, in the middle of the desert. He didn't have any $$ but he called his dad, 4 hours away, to ask for a ride. He was hungry and tired. A homeless woman, pushing a cart, asked if he needed anything. He explained his situation and she took out $10 and gave it to him. He tried to refuse but she insisted. He went into mini-mart and bought some beef jerky and water and when he came out to give her the change, she was gone. He said he couldn't imagine where she went because there wasn't any place for her to go!

Answer 7

Oh many times,had a lovely lady marine biologist who was sitting near me on a plane to Vancouver almost 18 years ago now. We were talking about the exon valdez and she told me when I came back from Alaska to leave her a message at the Vancouver Aquarium. She came and got me , gave me a cook's tour of the aquarium and I got to help wash some of the otters who had been caked in oil due to the exon valdez. Lovely lady .

When I travel I always meet interesting people who show me things I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise. I think it's fun to meet and chat with people no matter where you are. You may help them, they may help you .

Answer 8

Only here on Answers have I met some beautiful souls who lift me up. I now am blessed to call them friends but at one time they were strangers.

Answer 9

yes a few times in my life
but, i am the one outside a person's circle who reaches out the majority of the time...it's how God uses me<><

Answer 10

Yes I was stranded in Alabama in 1978, , I had gone down to see my Husband he was in basic training, we had a fight and he left me with no money, no room, no food. I was sleeping on a park bench in the park and this woman was walking her dog sat down on my bench and started talking to me, I was alone and 18. A woman that I have never met before, bought me a bus ticket to get back to Delaware. Her Name was Lorraine Nash, she passed away in 1998. I sent her a Christmas card every year, with 20.00 dollars in it, when she passed I got a check from her estate that totaled 400.00, which was the 20.00 I had sent her every year. Yes I gave the money to The humane society, after all she loved her dog and had no other family.