Rising food and gas prices and the reports of rising unemployment, with many people losing their homes, have reminded me of a time several years ago when my family and I lost everything and ended up homeless. It was many years ago, when my six children were small. We found ourselves living in the only thing we owned—a rundown car. Eight people, with no place else to go.
It was a dark time that still haunts me. It wasn’t easy foraging for food in garbage cans, fighting off flies for our supper. Shame filled us as we stood in public holding a sign, “Will work for food.” Our hearts broke as relatives and people whom we thought were friends turned their backs on us, pretending not to know us or recognize our plight. These vivid memories come rushing back like a tidal wave, drowning me with a fear of poverty just around the next corner. They whisper in my mind, “It’s going to happen to us again.”
the bills keep coming
Several months ago, my son and daughter lost jobs they had held for ten years, and I saw this as a warning that things were about to go sour again, and soon. Then my youngest daughter called to tell me that she, too, had just lost her job. I worried about how they would pay their rent, their car payments, and all their other bills. For months they looked for work and found nothing. Two of them were forced to move back home in order to keep their bills current. Things went from bad to worse as they lost their health coverage and could no longer afford to see a doctor. I worried about losing our house as so many others had, and often I cried like a baby. It was like trying to keep standing during an earthquake as the ground shakes violently beneath your feet.
My two married sons, who have children, were very stressed about how to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. One son who kept his job ended up taking payday loans just to make ends meet. From time to time, he has had to sell his household and personal effects in order to get extra cash to make it through a week. And I’ve had to pawn a few things, just as I did long ago, in order to pay for my daily medications. We’ve all stretched the dollar as far as it can go.
Even though I am now older, I still have a great fear of being homeless. I don’t think I could do it again. I go to sleep at night with the memories of being homeless and waking with the fear that it could happen again. Over the past six months, I’ve found myself having a pity party at least once a week. I begin to worry when I wake in the morning, and by evening I’m worn out and ready for bed. However, I don’t sleep well. I get up around five o’clock in the morning so I can worry some more about how to turn things around. I can’t change the economy or produce great-paying jobs with health benefits for everyone. I don’t have a money tree sprouting in my backyard.
Life feels as it did before, when everything looked hopeless and out of my control. And God reminded me of the time several years ago when I was at my lowest point, with only a car to live in, thinking I couldn’t keep going another day. I read my Bible by flashlight in the car, and when I prayed, I received the mental and physical strength to go on. God helped to keep us together as a family in overwhelming circumstances. He helped me to understand that while we were homeless, living in a rundown and beat-up old car, we were all still blessed with His love. He reminded me how we counted our blessings as we ate from garbage cans and how my family, in the midst of poverty, found many blessings as well as much for which to be thankful. We never fell sick from eating garbage, and we never needed a doctor.
what I have learned
Today, I remember the faces of strangers who reached out and showed us kindness, generosity, and love. They came to us with a smile and offered to help—sometimes a blanket, other times food. Many prayed for us and gave each one of us a loving hug. Such kindness coming from strangers was clearly a huge blessing.
In my present circumstances, it’s easy to forget these blessings when I should remember them and hold them close to my heart. God has helped me understand that I am not the only person hurting. Everyone is in a battle of some kind. Realizing that I was focusing on my own problems, that it had all become just about me, was like an awakening, an epiphany.
It doesn’t matter what battles we face in life; we need to focus on God and the good, realizing that even in our darkest moments He is showering His blessings on us. At this time, when so many are suffering because of a bad economy, it is good to say with the apostle Paul, who had been shipwrecked, flogged and stoned, persecuted and imprisoned “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (Philippians 4:12).
And what is the secret? In the next verse, Paul goes on to conclude, “I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (verse 13). And a few verses later, he adds, “My God will meet all [our] needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (verse 19).
I try to remember that no matter the circumstances, I am always blessed!
As the economy goes down and the bills mount, it pays to look somewhere other than at our own sorry circumstances.
