The fluorescent hum of the twenty-four-hour Save-Lot was the only hymn Grace knew by heart. She stood behind the register, scanning Arizona iced teas and hot chips, her fake nails clicking against the screen like a bored rosary. The night shift was a blur of shuffling insomniacs and people buying diapers at 2 a.m.

Then Timothy walked in.

Not in a robe or anything holy—just a gray hoodie and worn-out Jordans. But when he placed a gallon of milk and a box of generic cereal on the belt, he looked at her. Really looked. Like she wasn’t just a pair of hands behind a register.

“Rough night?” he asked.

She shrugged. “They’re all rough.”

He smiled, slow and warm. “Yeah, but some nights, grace shows up in the most unexpected places.”

She almost laughed. “My name is Grace.”

He blinked. Then he laughed too, low and real. “I’m Timothy. And I think that might be the most literal sign I’ve ever gotten.”

That was the beginning.

He came back the next Thursday. Then Tuesday. Then Sunday night after his last service. He’d bring her coffee from the bodega across the street—cream, two sugars—and stand off to the side when a customer came, hands in his pockets, patient. They talked about nothing: bad tips, worse managers, the art of folding a fitted sheet. But somewhere between the lotto scratchers and the expired lunch meat, something soft started growing.

One night, leaning against the counter while she wiped it down, he asked, “Why don’t you ever come to church, Grace?”

She didn’t flinch. “Because I don’t think God’s in a building with stained glass and a mortgage. I think He’s in the back of a crowded bus or the line at the food stamp office.”

Timothy nodded slowly. “That’s fair. But sometimes He’s also in a room full of people trying to love each other despite everything.”

She didn’t answer. But she thought about it.

A month later, on a chilly Sunday morning, she found herself standing outside New Hope Community Church—a repurposed auto shop with a cross spray-painted on the roll-up door. The bass from the sound system thrummed through the sidewalk. Inside, folding chairs, a drum kit, and a projector with song lyrics slightly out of focus.

She slipped into the back row. Timothy was on a small stage, no pulpit, just a mic and an open Bible. He wasn’t shouting. He was talking about the woman at the well—the one who came for water in the middle of the day because she was too ashamed to come when everyone else did.

“She thought she was hiding,” Timothy said, voice low but clear. “But God sent someone to meet her right where she was. Not at the temple. Not at sunrise. At noon. At her most tired. At her most ordinary.”

Grace’s chest went tight.

He continued. “Sometimes we think we have to clean up before we come to God. But the truth is, God comes to us in the middle of our night shifts. In the middle of our loneliness. He shows up in a stranger with a gallon of milk and a stupid smile.”

A few people chuckled. Grace didn’t. She was crying—quietly, in the back, where no one could see. Because she remembered that first night. The hum of the freezer. The lonely beep of the scanner. And Timothy’s eyes, like he’d been looking for her long before he ever walked through those automatic doors.

After the service, she waited by the coffee urn. He spotted her, and his whole face changed—surprise, then joy, then something deeper.

“You came,” he said.

“I think I was supposed to,” she said, voice still shaky. “I think… you showing up at my register at 2 a.m. wasn’t an accident.”

He stepped closer. “It wasn’t.”

“So what do we call it when the universe—when God—pulls something like that off?”

Timothy took her hand. His palm was warm, a little rough, like he’d been gripping a microphone too long. “We call it grace,” he said. “We call it grace.”

More Stories You May Like

More from Twana Lawler