Too Scared to Be a Good Samaritan?

She was hard to miss. Though our street sees its fair share of pedestrians an old lady by herself, wearing a sweater in August and walking a dog...is not the most common sight. I leaned over the back of Ryan's truck, scooped up another bucket of stone and nodded for him to turn around and look.

She was well-dressed...clean white pants, a white baggy t-shirt with some patriotic decor, and a bright red hat. While she walked toward us, she took off the thick white sweater and threw it over her arm. Her chubby little dog panted from his end of the leash, and the lady waved at me.

It started as a wave. Then it turned into a beckon. I said to Ryan, "I think she wants to talk to you."

Ryan has the kindest, biggest heart of anyone I know, and as the lady slowly made her way to us, he put down his shovel and walked to the edge of the yard to meet her.

I will come right out and say it. I've watched way too many crime shows. This sweet old lady with her fat little dog looked harmless enough, but I scooted around on the sidewalk and scoped her out from head to toe, trying to figure out if she had any good hiding spot for a gun. You can laugh. You can roll your eyes. But it's true. I did.

While I was scoping, I overheard enough of the conversation to know the woman told Ryan she was lost. She'd gone for a walk and gotten turned around. He looked up and asked me if I knew where a certain street was and I told him it was about five blocks away. The woman heard me and defeat settled over her face. I asked her what block number she lived in and she didn't know. She asked me what street number was at the end of the road and when I told her, she looked ready to cry. Her shoulders slumped and she said, "That's too far. I'll never make it."

I turned to retrieve a phone - to call the police and let them know we had this sweet {looking} old lady at our house who said she was lost...and right about then, I heard Ryan say, "It's okay. We'll take you home."

I froze.

Take her home? As in get in the same vehicle? Ryan hasn't watched years of crime shows.

While Ryan cleaned out the back seat of my car and lovingly helped the sweet lady and her dog into the car, I locked up the house and texted my sister that if she didn't hear from us for a while, the sweet looking old lady we were helping may have had a gun.

We climbed in the car, the woman sitting right behind me, mumbling words we couldn't understand...Ryan calmly chatting with her and me...freaking out in the passenger seat. At every corner, she'd tell us to turn...her directions taking us nowhere near where she said she lived.

At last she pointed to a driveway and told us her daughter lived there. Ryan pulled in and my detective eye noticed two people on a porch down the street watching us warily. It wasn't the part of town where you wanted people watching you warily, so I resumed my freaking-out-in-the-form-of-a-prayer, and the sweet lady said to Ryan firmly, "TOOT!"

I admit that almost made me laugh. Ryan looked at me with a little sparkle in his eye and said, "I'll go knock on the door." He walked up to the porch and I glanced over to see what the people were doing down the street. They were walking toward us...and I rapped loudly on the window for Ryan's attention. I gestured wildly in the direction of the people and he came down to meet them.

They asked if they could help him and he pointed at the little lady in the back seat. "She said she knows you."

The man shook his head and said, "She's been doing this..."

It was all true. The sweet little old lady who couldn't even remember her dog's name really did have dementia and she'd walked fifteen or more blocks in the middle of a hot day, with her sweater on, and had no idea where she was.

And while Ryan gently loved her as Jesus would, I was checking for hidden guns and reporting our whereabouts in case she was a phony.

I hate it that we live in a world where those thoughts even enter my mind. {And yes, I have watched too many crime shows - but those things really do happen, and you know it.} I hate it that my lived-alone-so-long lifestyle has made me more wary than gracious. I hate it that when one of the least of these wandered into my own yard, I was too scared to help her.

And I'm so grateful that on that day, I got to watch Ryan love that sweet old lady like Jesus does.