Something to share

[retired btc]

I don't know how much is true but it sure is touching.


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 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. 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 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 a 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 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 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 filled full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes. I quickly
opened the driver's side door, crumbled inside and kneeled in the
front facing the back seat.


Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was
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 was 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 hole 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....

THE POWER OF PRAYER. God still sits on the throne, the
devil is a liar. You maybe going through a tough time right now
but God is getting ready to bless you in a way that only He can.

Keep the faith.

This prayer is powerful, and prayer
is one of the best gifts we receive. There is no cost but a lot of
rewards

Let's continue to pray for one another. Here is the prayer:...


Father, I ask You to bless my friends, relatives and email
buddies reading this right now. Show them a new revelation
of Your love and power.

[-80guru]

I have nothing to add except, Thank You and God bless.

[robbynpa]

Thanks

[double bubble]

gidyup go gidyup go ooops wrong sad sap song.

[cehs]

Thanks, and blessings to all who believe in God, angels, Prayer, Love, and peace....

[John Walker]

I couldn't believe it when I started reading your post. I am the one who put the bags of toys, clothing, and food in you car. I am living far from Indiana now but having chose a carreer in HVAC and joining this forum then reading your post makes me think there is a lot more to life than I know about.

I did not buy or collect the item that went into your car, I was just the deliverly man. Let me explain. It was a cold Christmas Eve night and I was hitch hiking to get home for Christmas. I thought I would freeze on the highway when this big rig top the hill and put on his brakes. I climbed into that nice warm cab and the driver introduced himself as Joe. Said his friends called him Big Joe. He had some kind of wired name for his truck like the Phantom or something like that. Anyway when reaching a truck top in the southern part of the state he pulled in and said that's as far as he'd carry me. He pulled a bunch of bags from out of sleeper compartment and ask me if I'd mind puting them in the back of this old battered up Chevy car. He even paid me a dime to get a cup of coffee with and told me to tell the waitrest to have a Merry Christmas from Big Joe.

I never made it inside because as soon as I closed the car door another big rig started heading out. He had a sign on the front of his rig that said Gitty Up Go. I found out he was headed in my direction and hopped in.

I never thought that the person owning the car would go this long without knowing who the stuff was from. The tires I knew nothing about. Well now you know. I wish I had given you the message or left a note. Who was Joe? Your husband?

[bootlen]

Originally posted by John Walker
I couldn't believe it when I started reading your post. I am the one who put the bags of toys, clothing, and food in you car. I am living far from Indiana now but having chose a carreer in HVAC and joining this forum then reading your post makes me think there is a lot more to life than I know about.

I did not buy or collect the item that went into your car, I was just the deliverly man. Let me explain. It was a cold Christmas Eve night and I was hitch hiking to get home for Christmas. I thought I would freeze on the highway when this big rig top the hill and put on his brakes. I climbed into that nice warm cab and the driver introduced himself as Joe. Said his friends called him Big Joe. He had some kind of wired name for his truck like the Phantom or something like that. Anyway when reaching a truck top in the southern part of the state he pulled in and said that's as far as he'd carry me. He pulled a bunch of bags from out of sleeper compartment and ask me if I'd mind puting them in the back of this old battered up Chevy car. He even paid me a dime to get a cup of coffee with and told me to tell the waitrest to have a Merry Christmas from Big Joe.

I never made it inside because as soon as I closed the car door another big rig started heading out. He had a sign on the front of his rig that said Gitty Up Go. I found out he was headed in my direction and hopped in.

I never thought that the person owning the car would go this long without knowing who the stuff was from. The tires I knew nothing about. Well now you know. I wish I had given you the message or left a note. Who was Joe? Your husband?

==================================================

Well then, John, allow me to offer up this prayer of thanksgiving:

Thank You, Lord God, for making the devil pay for all this stuff. Amen.