A South Philadelphia woman stopped a would-be package thief not by calling the police, but by offering the woman unconditional love.
Most of us would have pulled out our phones and started recording for social media. Or shouted. Or called 911. But what Bernadette Williams did that afternoon was clearly what God wants us to do in such a situation. It is the kind of story that makes you stop and rethink how you treat people who are clearly at their lowest.
Bernadette Williams spotted a woman across the street, face half-hidden behind a blue windbreaker, tote bag in hand, reaching toward a neighbor’s porch package.
She did not hesitate. “What are you doing? Put that back! Put that back!” The woman dropped it.
That should have been the end of it. But Williams was not done.
She reached into her pocket. Everything she had was $7. She offered it anyway. “I’ll give you some money. Here’s $7, here’s $7.”
And then she said something that would stop most of us cold. “You’re better than that. Get some help. You’re better than that. I love you. God loves you.” The woman quietly said, “Thank you.”
Williams later told reporters she saw it in the woman’s eyes before she even spoke. “Her eyes of ‘I’m sorry.’ And that was in her heart and that’s what I read. And I hope that she will be fine. And I have faith that she will be fine.”
She said her thinking in that moment was simple. “I said, ‘She’s in trouble. How can I make a bad situation better?’ You have to be a part of the solution.”
Williams believed something shifted in that woman right there on the street. “She started realizing ‘I am somebody.’ She started realizing that ‘There is somebody out here that cares.'”
We do not know what drove that woman to a stranger’s porch that day. Desperation looks different for everyone. But Williams chose to see a person, not a thief — and that changed everything.
May we all have that kind of heart to understand others and help them realize their true value before judging them.
WATCH: Woman Stops Package Thief With Unexpected Act of Kindness
