I met the most amazing woman through work. It's a long story about how I met her, but not that important. What is important is her amazing stories of small miracle after miracle. The miracle for me was that my life will be different for having met her.
Gloria doesn't have a lot of worldly posessions. She doesn't have a glamourous job (in fact I think she may have two jobs just to stay afloat). She doesn't have a fancy wardrobe or a nice car. What she does have is a strong testimony and is full of gratitude. While we were chatting, I asked her if she was LDS. She said she was and she had tried to lose her testimony, but simply could not despite all her experiences below with less than stellar and exemplary Mormons. She has every reason to be angry and bitter, but isn't. Here are some of the stories she told me:
--Her husband left her with 7 kids after the baby was just 3 weeks old. She never heard from him and never received any child support.
--She tried welfare for a while and thought it was "stupid" (her words). She worked 3 jobs at one time to support her family. She would work in between her kids' school schedules so they never felt that she wasn't around. She remembers walking back and forth to her job to feed her baby.
--While she was waiting for her first check, she went to the bishop to ask for help. He told her that she was "hell bait" because she didn't pay tithing. Not sure how you can pay tithing when you haven't even earned a paycheck, so she gave him a piece of her mind and stormed out of his office.
--She told me for whatever reason, her house was egged just about every day. One night she prayed that it was OK that they were constantly being egged, but if it was possible, could there please be eggs left so she could feed her little boy. She said that night that they got egged worse than they had ever experienced. She went outside and sure enough, there were two eggs left intact. She was able to fix her little boy his eggs. She couldn't understand why she was targeted or who would be so mean, but she never seemed angry or bitter tabout being the victim. She taught her kids to never be the bully and never put someone in their situation.
--One winter she didn't have any shoes. All she wanted was a pair of slippers so she could walk outside and get the mail. Some neighbors were moving and had a box that they felt inspired to drop off to her. She was excited thinking it was full of some toys for her kids. She opened the box, and there were 9 pairs of shoes inside. All of them were size six. That's the size she wears.
--Of course the Mormons weren't kind, but those Baptists were. Their preacher would stop by her house and drop off food, check on her and make sure they were OK. They would drive by on the Baptist Bus and honk and wave. She decided that she was going to join them. One day, she got her kids dressed and ready to go. She waved the bus driver over and went to get on the bus, but was stopped in her tracks by a huge electrical shock from the fence that surrounded her house. The fence was not electric, but she took that as a sign that she should not join them. Let me just say that there is nothing wrong with Baptists, in fact they are lovely people and really treated her with much more kindness and compassion than those darn Mormons who give the rest of us a bad name. I am merely relaying the story she told me. She took that electrical shock as a sign that she should not become a Baptist.
--She didn't have any money to buy her kids some food and there was no way she was going to ask that bishop for help. She had no food in the house and prayed for help. She said she felt inspired to clean her house. She cleaned behind her old piano and there she found a bag of beans. The name of the beans: Blessing Beans". She and her family ate those beans for a week. She has no idea how they got there. She cut out the label and put it in her journal.
I am sure she has many more faith promoting stories, but those are the few she shared with me. There is no way I could hear those stories and not be changed somehow.
She inspired me to want to appreciate the things I have even more. When I finally make my millions I want to start a scholarship for single mothers who want to support themselves and get off welfare. It's going to be in honor of Gloria and will have her name.
She's 61 and still has two kids at home. One is mentally handicapped and her other adult child is bi-polar. She doesn't complain or bemoan her lot in life. She says she doesn't need much and is happy to have what little she does. What an example!!! Sometimes all you need is your faith and prayers and a bag of "Blessing Beans" to get you through.
