Krieg- Mineral City, Ohio

I was in line at the Alive festival to get an iced coffee with a friend. I realized there was a small picture frame with a picture of a young boy and a few paragraphs next to it. I decided to read it while I waited, before reading it I had assumed it would be about a young boy battling an illness. As i read on my heart broke as I realized it was something far more serious, this boy, AJ, was taken from this earth before he could even reach high school. I asked the woman behind the counter more about his story and she gladly conversed with me explaining that she was AJ's grandmother. She told me how a bad snow storm had shut the local schools down so AJ went to a family members house. The more she talked the more i realized she was not letting the pain of the memory deter her from showing God's love, in fact it was the complete opposite. She explained that AJ's family had started a pay it forward style movement to keep his memory alive, and handed me a card explaining that she would pay for our drinks. This simple act not only expressed the way that AJ lived his life but also expressed God's love for his children. I plan to use it later today to bless someone in return by paying for their order at a local coffee shop.