Thanksgiving

 This morning I woke to find the first snowfall of the year.  My family was still asleep, which is a rare occurrence now that the kids have jobs.  I took advantage of this opportunity and set my living room up for a peaceful quiet time.  I tidied, lit a candle, turned on twinkle lights, and opened the blinds so I could see the snow in the remaining moonlight.  I made coffee and grabbed a blanket.  I turned on the quietest instrumental winter music and set the speaker nearby, so as to not disturb anyone.  Then I sat down, coffee in hand, to enjoy the scene before me.  

To my mind came thoughts about Thanksgiving and I prayed, thanking God for another year with my husband and children.  There was a time when I didn't dare dream of the beautiful life that I enjoy today.  Hard times.  And I thought about how, during those times, there were people who lifted me up.  I sat thinking about one Thanksgiving in particular, when we encountered a series of difficulties that left me nearly paralyzed with fear.  Looking back, I think that some of my fear was due to being young and not having perspective about how these seasons happen in life, and that even though you may not see how, they come to an end eventually.  At the time, to me, we were in an unsolvable difficulty.  

That Thanksgiving season, we were living in what we now affectionately call the "crack house," in Brookings, Oregon.  A worn, chipped, and broken two-bedroom apartment that was so small you had to turn sideways to shimmy past the washer and dryer if you wanted to enter the downstairs bathroom.  In fact, when we applied for the apartment, the property manager looked at our family sitting there and said, "This apartment is very small.  Are you sure it's going to be enough space for you guys?"  I emphatically assured her that it was going to be just fine for us, but silently wondered how on earth we had ended up there.  

Turns out the crack house apartment shared a wall with a meth dealer.  His own tiny apartment was stuffed full of people with gray and pocked skin, who stayed up into all hours of the night. There were screaming fights, there was broken glass, there were cars flying into and out of the gravel parking area, spinning brodies and skidding all across the place. There was one night when a man showed up with a gun demanding, as if in a scene from a movie, that Jeremy "give him his ******* money."   Each time something like this would happen, I would pray God's protection over the kids.  Mercifully, they were usually sleeping as most of that kind of activity happens at night.  And my kids are nothing if not sound sleepers.  God was faithful to us.

There was also the debt.  We had recently sold our contract business at a great loss and were saddled with $25,000 in debt when all was said and done.  With Jeff's new job barely covering our living expenses, we were struggling to pay the minimums and collectors began calling.  I remember one day after paying the bills, I was left with $38 for the week's groceries.  I sat in my cramped kitchen no bigger than a garden shed, and prayed.  I looked over the pantry and in the fridge.  I made a small list of a dozen or so items that I could mix and match with what we had. A zucchini, for pasta.  Top Ramen.  A pound of ground beef.  Things like that.  Then I set out for the grocery store.  

In the parking lot, my phone rang.  Unknown number = collector.  I answered.  A harsh voice introduced herself and began her spiel.  "Ma'am, this is...minimum payment...$952.00."  I don't remember all the words.  What I do remember is telling her, "I am in the grocery store parking lot and I have thirty-eight dollars to feed my family of five for the week."  I began to choke up.  I continued, "So no, I cannot make a payment.  Because nine-hundred fifty-two dollars might as well be a million to me."  Then I began to sob in earnest.  

The collector was silent for a long moment as I cried and then she said softly, "Honey, it's okay. If you don't have it, you don't have it.  What can you do?  Don't worry about it."  Her kindness was both comforting and painful to me.  I guess it was humiliating to be in such a low position.  But I thanked her and ended the call.

I prayed my way into Fred Meyer, asking for help.  Inside I found that--I kid you not--nearly every item on my list was on sale.  My total was $28-something!  How.  Could.  This.  Be?  God was faithful to us.

Soon after that we got the news that Jeff's new job was slowing down for winter and that, low man on the pole, he would be laid off for the season.  Visiting the unemployment office that day we learned that, since Jeff had been a business owner the previous year, we would not be eligible for unemployment.  That meant that at twenty-six years old, with three babies and $25,000 of debt, we were facing at least three months with zero income.  Zero.  I was terrified for the sake of the kids.  We were responsible for taking care of them, and we were failing.

I pleaded with Jeff to hurry down to the employment agency and get all the paperwork filled out. He agreed but said, "I don't think we need to panic.  I think we need to pray."  I said okay but could he please pray while he drove to the unemployment office because, well, time was ticking. He said, "Sarah, God is going to take care of us."  I said I knew He was but could he please get his coat and keys and get a move on?  We went back and forth like that for a bit before he realized that I was just too afraid to be reasoned with.  He got his keys and opened the door, then fell out of it by tripping on a grocery bag that had been placed in the doorway.  

"What is this?"  

It was a bag of little boys' hand me down clothes, for Jackson.  No note, but as I unpacked the bag I recognized the sweet and familiar smell of Mindy Martini's fabric softener and knew right away who had dropped the bag off.  Slid down the side of the bag was an envelope with $300 in it.  How did Mindy know?  We hadn't told anyone our situation.  Jeff was still standing in the doorway and I was sitting on the couch.  Spontaneously, we both began to laugh!  He had been tripped by God's provision for us!  I felt the fear leave me.  God was faithful to us.

Just before his official layoff date was Thanksgiving Day.  We had no money for any kind of celebration but weren't worried about it.  The kids were still little and wouldn't know.  We didn't have any family of friends to host, so we were content to let the day pass without acknowledgement.  Jeff came home with a giant box in his arms.  He said that his co-workers, Barbara and Blake Phillips, had organized a Thanksgiving dinner for us.  As I looked in the box I became completely overwhelmed.  It was not just a turkey and a box of stuffing; this was a true feast!  They included gifts for the kids, including hand-sewn dresses that became the uniform the girls wanted to live in.  They lavished kindness on us that was so far above what we could have prayed for.  I began to think that God's faithfulness to us was not going to let up!  

I can't remember the timing of it but somewhere around there I got an email from someone I kind of knew from church, Julie Powers.  She and I didn't really know one another much but had been exchanging emails in the months leading up to this season.  I don't really know how it started, actually, but there was something about email that made it possible for us two acquaintances to really get to know one another.  But we never hung out in person, barring the odd, "Hi!  How are you?" at church.  Anyhow, out of the blue one day, Julie asked to stop by our apartment.  She came in and said, "We have been so blessed with Matt's gaming and want to give you this."  Tears gleamed in her eyes because, as I came to know in future years, nobody was going to go through a hard time alone when Julie Powers was around.  She felt it too.  That day she brought us $500 and the reminder that we were not facing our storm all by ourselves.  

We hunkered down, heated the kids room only, ate simply, and got by with the help God had given us.  

A month later, a woman knocked on our door.  Jeff answered and she said, "Someone told me to give you this.  Merry Christmas."  She held something out to him.  Puzzled, Jeff thanked her and came to show me what she had given him.  It was a stack of gift cards to local businesses. Truly staggered, he laid them down on the counter and we looked through them.  Fred Meyer, Subway, McDonald's...$600 worth of gift cards!  How in the world?  Who was this lady?  How did she know where we lived?  Who sent her?  We were mystified but rejoicing to overflowing. God was teaching us that we could trust Him at all times.  Not in an intellectual sense, but with a certainty that was becoming deeply-knit into our hearts.  

In the spring, Jeff resumed his work as a draftsman in town.  I know that winter was hard but I also remember spending each evening listening to Bible teachings with Jeff.  I remember huddling up in our blankets, shivering and laughing with one another.  I remember getting "Stomp the Yard" from the library and watching the kids spend many evenings dancing and banging along with the video, using the broom, our pans, the coffee table...I remember that winter of hard was also a winter of good.

Then one day, Jeff called and said that the owner's wife wanted to stop by and bring a gift to the children.  I was so nervous!  I had never met Sue before and had no idea what to expect. Imagining a wealthy and fancy woman (the kind of woman who wore trousers and a string of pearls), I was self-conscious about welcoming her into our very humble home.  Turns out, I needn't have worried because Sue Hoshall is the most warm and unassuming woman I've ever met!  She immediately put me at ease and brought the kids a play kitchen that her granddaughter had outgrown.  I loved her instantly.

I guess she must have taken one look around and decided that our accommodations were not acceptable because the next thing I knew the company was moving us into a beautiful duplex on the other side of town!  I still laugh to myself, knowing Sue as I do now, when I imagine the conversation that must have taken place when she got back from dropping off that play kitchen.  

The best part of living in the duplex was that she and her husband Tom were living in the other side of it, when they were in town.  She would come over and visit with us, bringing books and reading to the kids.  She invited us over for dinner and made us feel so welcome. She told me stories and made me laugh and took my mind off of the heaviness of living under a mountain of debt.  And that duplex was a continual source of levity and joy to me.  I even delighted in cleaning it!  Daily I would look around and smile, thanking God for blessing us with such luxury.  I sat out on the back deck (with a view of the ocean lighthouse on clear days) grinning stupidly as I took in the scene.  Now, in reality, this was just a duplex.  A nice one, but nothing a person would call fancy.  But compared to the place we came from, it was like living in a mansion.  

Our story went on with more lows and more highs, but that's the season I was thinking about this morning.  Now that I've typed all of this out and cried all kinds of grateful tears, I am going to get started on our Thanksgiving dinner.  I am still overwhelmed by God's faithfulness to us.  He saw our struggles and sent people to help, and that is amazing.  I've had the good fortune to be able to do helpful things for people over the years, but right now I'm thinking about how to do more.  Because to someone who is going through a storm, those helps are monumental.  They are pegs that are always there in the hallway of your life, reminding you of where you have been and that whatever you face tomorrow, it is going to be okay.  God will be faithful to you then, just as He was in times before.  

Happy Thanksgiving.