The Lunch Lady Who Kept a Running Tab

For fourteen years, Maria Gonzalez worked the register in a middle school cafeteria in San Antonio, Texas. She noticed what most adults missed — the kids who lingered at the back of the line, patting empty pockets, pretending they weren't hungry. So Maria started keeping a spiral notebook in her apron. Every time a child couldn't pay, she wrote down the amount and covered it herself.

Her coworkers thought she was crazy. On a cafeteria worker's salary, she was spending nearly two hundred dollars a month feeding other people's children. When the local news finally caught the story, a reporter asked if she worried about her own finances. Maria laughed. "I've never missed a meal because I gave one away," she said. "God has always made sure of that."

By the time she retired, that spiral notebook held over twenty-two thousand dollars in meals she had quietly absorbed. Not one child ever knew her name was in that ledger beside theirs. Not one was ever shamed.

The psalmist paints this exact portrait — the one who fears the Almighty is gracious, compassionate, and generous in lending. They conduct their affairs with justice. Their heart is steady and unafraid because it is anchored in something deeper than a bank balance. Darkness comes, but light dawns for the upright. Maria never called herself righteous. She just kept a notebook and an open hand, and the Lord kept filling both.