Angels Once in a While
The following was in a newsletter I receive and I wanted to share it with you.
I think this might be inspirational for anyone who takes the time to read it.
I hope that you find encouragement within these words
to help you stay on God's narrow path and think about others.
In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and
just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged from
three months to seven years; their sister was two.
Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared. Whenever
they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble
to hide under their beds.
He did manage to leave 15 dollars a week to buy groceries. Now that he
had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food
either.
If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that
time, I certainly knew nothing about it. I scrubbed the kids until they
looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress. I loaded them
into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job.
The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small
town. No luck. The kids stayed, crammed into the car and tried to be
quiet while I tried to convince whomever would listen that I was willing
to learn or do anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck.
The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root
Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop. It was
called the Big Wheel.
An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the
window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the
graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65
cents an hour and I could start that night.
I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for
people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a
night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already
be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a
deal.
That night when and the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers we
all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at the Big
Wheel.
When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her
home with one dollar of my tip money--fully half of what I averaged
every night.
As the weeks went by, heating bills added another strain to my meager
wage.
The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and
began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again
every morning before I could go home.
One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found
four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing,
just those beautiful brand new tires.
Had angels taken up residence in Indiana? I wondered.
I made a deal with the owner of the local service station. In exchange
for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember
it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the
tires.
I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough.
Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the
kids.
I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old
toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something for
Santa to deliver on Christmas morning.
Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the
boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.
On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big
Wheel. These were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper
named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion
and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine.
The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the
morning and then left to get home before the sun came up.
When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning
I hurried to the car. I was hoping the kids wouldn't wake up before I
managed to get home and get the presents from the basement and place
them under the tree. (We had cut down a small cedar tree by the side of
the road down by the dump.)
It was still dark and I couldn't see much, but there appeared to be some
dark shadows in the car--or was that just a trick of the night?
Something certainly looked different, but it was hard to tell what.
When I reached the car I peered warily into one of the side windows.
Then my jaw dropped in amazement. My old battered Chevy was full--full
to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes.
I quickly opened the driver's side door, scrambled inside and kneeled in
the front facing the back seat.
Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of
the top box. Inside was a whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10!
I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans.
Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes: There were candy and nuts
and bananas and bags of groceries.
There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and
potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and
flour. There was a whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items.
And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll.
As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most
amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I
will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious
morning.
Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all
hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop.
If this blesses you, pass it on...
For you to share this message with others, all you need to do is email them this address and they can see this page directly:
http://www.crochetnmore.com/angelsonceinawhile.htm
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