Marlena: Have you ever reached for
your wallet only to find out somebody
had already taken care of it?
A while back, my husband and I drove
down to Miami for the weekend, and if
you'd ever driven the Florida Turnpike,
you know there's always tolls, and then
another toll, and then just when you
think you're free, yet another one.
So we're on our way home approaching one
more toll booth, and we're both fishing
around the car for some cash or a few
coins, and I ease into the shortest lane.
The other lanes were quite long.
And out of nowhere, a car comes
flying in from the left so fast
that I knew we were gonna collide.
She cut me off.
I hit the brakes.
I swerved.
I laid on my horn.
I said a couple words that I won't repeat
on this podcast, but y'all, I was so mad.
I was not a Georgia
peach right at that time.
Um, I turned a good bright red.
I could feel the anger starting to settle
in my stomach, and now she's in front
of me, and I'm just staring at the back
of her head while she's paying her toll.
She pulls off.
I take a breath, and I ease up to
the toll booth, fully expecting the
toll lady to give me one of those
looks like, "Girl, I saw that."
But then she smiled at me.
And how do you not smile back at
a really, like, genuine smile?
I stretched my dollar bill out the
window and she said, "It's already paid."
Wow.
Then she pointed at the same
car that had almost hit me.
She lifted the gate
and she let me through.
I said thank you, and then
the whole car went silent.
30 seconds of disdain and anger,
a little rage, were all conquered
by a stranger's smile and three
little words, "It's already paid."
And yes, I caught the pun.
Kill them with kindness, because
that's exactly what she did.
She killed my anger with her kindness.
Hold onto those words, because
that's the whole episode.
Welcome to episode nine of Living
Simply Redeemed: Finding Joy with
Marlena, and I'm so glad you're here.
Grab a coffee, tea, or whatever you need.
Um, find a corner with me or
let's do some laundry together.
Let's take the drive,
commute, wherever you are.
We're heading into the season of
Thanksgiving, and then next comes the
season of giving, and I've been thinking
a lot about how those two belong together.
Gratitude is how we receive,
and giving is how we pass it on.
And underneath both of them is one
truth I want us to sit with today.
That so much of what we have was
paid for before we ever arrived.
Last episode, we talked about buying
the field, about Jeremiah sitting in
a prison, investing in land behind
enemy lines because God said there
will still be a future, and about
keeping our hands busy building and
sowing while we wait on God's promises.
And as I told you about a little
girl, someone once called her
naive because she didn't worry.
She saw the best in people,
and she'd give you her last
cookie without thinking twice.
I want to bring that word back.
She wasn't naive
She was made that way.
That kind of giving heart was planted
in me by God, and it's still there.
It's who I am.
I love to pour into people.
I love to see someone's
vision come to life.
Even watching joy show up in
someone else's face is one
of the ways I find my own.
I'll be honest with you, a giving
heart needs a little guarding.
Because there's a version of giving
that's really anxious to please.
Giving so people like you or saying
yes because you're afraid of what
happens if you say no, or pouring
out until there's nothing left
and then quietly resenting it.
That's not the giving God planted.
Proverbs four and twenty-three
says to guard your heart because
everything you do flows from it.
And even in Second Corinthians nine,
seven, it says each of us should give
what we've decided in our heart to give,
not reluctantly or under compulsion,
But because God loves a cheerful giver.
Cheerful, not pressured,
not anxious, not performing.
So today, I want to talk about the kind of
giving that flows out of having received.
Because I've learned that the cheerful
giver is usually the one who remembers
what she's already been given.
Let's go back to the
toll booth for a minute.
For me, kill them with kindness
simply means answering negativity
with a gentle kindness that can change
the whole dynamic of a situation.
And I'll be the first to say that can
be hard depending on what you've got
going on in your own life that day.
That afternoon, I wasn't the kind one.
She had cut me off.
But I was the one who was on the horn and
with a jacked up face, just to be honest.
And here's what humbles me.
The woman who cut me
off is the one who paid.
The person I was angry
with covered my cost.
It might have inconvenienced me.
I didn't earn it.
I definitely didn't
deserve it in that moment.
It was just done before
I even got to the window.
And if you hear the gospel
in that, you're not wrong.
Because the biggest gift of any of
us has ever received was paid for
long before we got to the window.
For God so loved the world that
he gave his one and only son
giving that didn't start with us.
It started with him.
That's John 3, 16.
Even Romans 5 and 8 says, God
demonstrates his own love for us in this.
While we were yet still
sinners, Christ died for us.
Not after we cleaned it up,
not after we got it right.
Jesus paid for our sin before
we ever arrived to commit it.
His grace still goes ahead of us every
morning and is already there waiting.
And the Spirit says it.
The Spirit stays.
He didn't pay the price and then leave
us down here to figure it out on our own.
In John 14, 16, Jesus promised another
helper, the Holy Spirit, to be with
us forever, comforting us, guiding us,
correcting us, and walking it out with us.
Father, Son, and Spirit, threefold, every
person in the Trinity has given something
to us, and the reward at the end of it all
is that we get to go home to our Father.
So when the toll lady said, "It's
already paid," something in my spirit
said, "Yes, I know that feeling."
I've been living in that
grace my whole life.
And sometimes if we're honest,
we're not the one sitting at
the booth with the dollar out.
We're the car that cut somebody off.
We're the one who caused the near
miss, and grace still paid our way.
So here's another
already paid in my story.
About thirty years ago, I was a high
school student living in Kirkwood here
in Atlanta, but I was accepted into a
magnet program across town at the Center
for Engineering and Applied Technology
at Frederick Douglass High School.
Yes, ma'am.
Um, it was an opportunity, a real one,
but it was all the way across town.
So every day, I made the trip about an
hour and a half each way, MARTA, bus,
train, walk, and some days my dad would
drop me off or pick me up, but most of
the days it was me and my MARTA card.
What I didn't fully understand
so deeply then was that somebody
else paid for those MARTA cards.
An organization I never met
funded the transportation I
needed to get there every day.
Just the ride, that's all.
But without the ride, there was no
school, or at least not that one.
It's funny.
Today, I make almost that same
commute to work, an hour and a half
up to Alpharetta every day, driving.
And some mornings I think about
that little girl with the MARTA
card, and I realize she was riding
on someone else's generosity.
Her education, the path God stewarded for
her, ran on a fare that was already paid.
I was afforded an opportunity, and
I didn't even know who to thank.
So here's what brings
this full circle for me.
I'm a member of Impact100 Atlanta.
So are my sisters.
I also served on the board supporting
marketing and communications, And I still
support them in a similar role today.
If you haven't heard of
Impact100, here's the heart of it.
It's a collective of women.
Every member gives or
raises $1,000 a year.
And when you put enough of us together,
every 100 women give $100,000.
That is a $100,000 grant
to a local nonprofit.
Not a check, a transformative grant,
the kind that lets an organization dream
bigger and plan bigger and get it done.
And every woman who gives gets a vote.
We decide together on who in the
Atlanta area as a local nonprofit gets
to then receive that impact boost.
Impact100 Global started years ago,
and now there are chapters in cities
across the country and beyond.
Here in Atlanta, the grants go across five
focus areas: arts and culture, education,
environment preservation and recreation,
family, and health and wellness.
So this year, our five finalists have
been announced, one in each focus area.
And on Sunday, November 8th, we
gather for what we call The Big Give.
That's when we vote and the
grant recipients are announced.
So these grants are given every year.
That membership, that fundraise,
that gift of $1,000 gets multiplied,
and we are able to give those grants
to a local nonprofit every year.
Every one of them is doing major work
right here in our community, and I'm so
excited to see what God does through it.
Now, here's the part that got me.
Last year, one of the 2025 grant
recipients was an organization called
Raising Expectations, and they received
$89,000 in the education focus for their
"No Place Like Home" capital campaign.
And part of what that grant does is
expand transportation for students.
Their co-founder, Tangi Allen,
described it as removing a
critical barrier to success.
More students able to get there, more
students showing up, more families
able to be a part of it, ensuring that
more students and families can fully
participate in the programs that help
them pursue a life full of choices.
Transportation, the ride, the same
thing someone once paid for me.
So the girl whose fare was
paid now gets to stand on the
other side of the booth now
That's the circle.
Somebody paid for me.
Now I get to pay forward for
someone else, and I may never meet
them, just like I never met the
people who paid for my Marta card.
That's okay.
God keeps the record.
And sometimes giving looks a little less
like a grant and more like an apron.
I do love to cook.
I love hospitality.
There's something about serving someone
a good, warm meal that just fills me up.
So I helped at a church
downtown that opens its doors
every Monday through Friday.
People from the homeless and
underserved communities come in
and receive a hot meal on trays or
eaten right there in a warm place.
They can receive prayer there, too.
We also prep meals to go.
And here's the part I love.
A lot of that food comes from surplus,
from restaurants and grocers here locally.
Food that would've gone to waste is
rescued and turned into real meals,
and some of the organizations making
that happen are also supported by
groups like Impact One Hundred.
Don't you see it?
One woman writes a check in November,
somebody rescues food, somebody
else chops onions in a kitchen on
a Tuesday, and a man who hasn't had
a hot meal in days gets to sit down
and eat, and someone prays with him.
None of us did it alone, and none
of us saw the whole thing, but every
one of us got to be a part of it.
That's what giving does.
It connects in ways
you'll rarely get to see.
So let's bring it back to the Trinity.
If the Father gave His Son and the
Son gave His life and the Spirit
gives Himself to walk with us every
day, then giving isn't something
extra we do when we have time.
It's how we reflect who He is.
And honestly, the minimum He's
asked of us isn't complicated.
Share the story.
Make disciples.
Be a witness.
Encourage one another.
Jesus said in Matthew twenty-eight
to go and make disciples, and First
Thessalonians five and eleven to encourage
one another and build each other up.
Build each other up.
That's kingdom building, the same
way women come together through
Impact100 to build up our community,
we have the opportunity to come
together in our churches to build
the kingdom one check, one meal, one
conversation, one testimony at a time.
Last episode, we talked
about how Jesus said in Luke
nineteen, "Occupy till I come."
Keep doing business, keep
sowing into your family and
your calling and your community.
That is what that looks
like in a season of giving.
Now, I wanna be honest.
Kindness costs something.
Sometimes it does cost money,
but more often it costs time.
It costs our patience, if anything, or
it feels like a delay or inconvenience,
like sitting at a toll booth a few seconds
while someone else figures out their own
change, running too fast and they get
in front of you, letting someone else
merge when you're already running late,
like listening to someone's story when
you have somewhere else to go or to be.
There's a little tension in it,
maybe even some impatience, and
I'm the first to admit my prune
face still shows up sometimes.
But here's what that toll booth taught me.
You never know what you're
receiving inside of a moment of
kindness or of inconvenience.
I thought I was about to lose a
dollar and my temper, and instead
I received a gift and a smile and a
sermon I'm still sharing years later.
Somebody was patient with
me way more than once.
In high school, riding MARTA across
town, in my twenties trying to figure
out who I was, in my grief when the
light had gone out of my eyes, somebody's
patience and kindness carried me
through seasons I couldn't carry myself.
So when it's my turn to be patient,
to give a little bit more time or
to slow down, I try to remember
this might be someone else's toll
booth, and I get to be the one who
gets to say, "It's already paid."
So truth without a next
step fades all too quickly.
Here's one step.
Pick the one with your name on it.
If you want to practice kindness, pay
it forward somewhere small this week.
Someone's coffee, someone's toll,
someone's meal, a note to
someone who's having a hard time.
And if someone cuts you off, give them
the gift of a gentle response instead.
If you've been on the receiving
end, remember and be mindful and
thoughtful about who paid your way.
A teacher, a mentor, a coworker,
the church, a stranger, your family.
Write their names down like a scroll
of remembrance and thank God for them.
And if you can, thank them too.
If you want to give in your own
community, go find a local nonprofit
doing work you care about in education
or family or health or the arts
and the environment, in a kitchen.
Support them.
Volunteer a shift.
Serve a meal.
If you're in the Atlanta area,
consider joining Impact100 Atlanta
and membership for 2026 is closed,
but you can consider joining for
2027 and be a part of what's coming.
You can find them at impact100atlanta.org.
And if you're somewhere else, look for
an Impact One Hundred chapter near you
or the organization in your city that's
paying for the fare for someone else.
This isn't a push, it's an invitation.
You have the opportunity to give and
make an impact before the year ends.
I'd love to see you in the room.
Let's pray.
Father thank you for giving first.
Thank you for sending your Son
who paid for our sin before
we ever arrived to commit it.
Thank you for your Holy Spirit who never
leaves us to walk this out alone, and
thank you for every person who's paid
our way, the ones we know, the ones we'll
never meet this side of heaven, and keep
their names on your book of remembrance.
Guard the giving hearts that you know and
guard the giving hearts you planted in us.
Heal anything in us that gives out of fear
or pressure and make us cheerful givers
again the way we were as little ones.
And in this season, show each
of us where to pay it forward.
In our church or community or in
our homes, let us build one another
up and build your kingdom in it.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Somebody already paid it
for you more than once.
So who will you pay it forward for?
Thank you for sitting with me on Living
Simply Redeemed: Finding Joy with Marlena.
Until next time, live
simply and live redeemed