Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Write an INSPIRATIONAL article (11/27/14)
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TITLE: Even the Smallest Blessing | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ann Grover
12/04/14 -
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ADD TO MY FAVORITES
After the toboggan was loaded, I dragged it to the house and piled the wood on the porch. The temperature was -28, with a breeze; the small heap would last two or three days. I stomped the snow off my boots and went inside the cold house.
I was alone.
A shattered marriage. Distant adult children.
I lit a fire. It burned sulkily, and I huddled next to the wood stove, absorbing any bit of heat it deigned to give me. I pondered supper. Day-old bagel? Or day-old bagel? One thing for sure, life was simpler with fewer choices.
While I warmed up, advice from naysayers and well-wishers cavorted through my mind. Tantalizing, condemning, and platitudinal.
“You deserve it. It’s God’s chastisement.”
“This is your chance to do whatever you wish, wherever you wish.”
“Just pray. Everything will be fine.”
Everything wasn’t fine. No one understood, really, the depth of my fear, how harrowing it was just to breathe. I had no money, no job, and no work experience. I found small jobs tutoring children and cleaning houses. One house drove me to my knees. I was asked to clean under the stairs in the basement and had to squeeze through a hole in the wall. The cramped “cave” was dark and dirty, festooned with cobwebs and littered with dry leaves and dead insects. I cried, filth mingling with my desperate tears. “Please, God, do something, anything.”
He was silent.
The temperatures plummeted that winter, and in the mornings, it was often mere degrees above freezing in my house. I closed off rooms, confining myself to the area near the wood stove, rationing the rotten wood. I coveted my neighbour’s woodpile, and contemplated stealing wood in the middle of the night. The evidence of my footprints in the snow was the only thing that stopped me. I wept for what I had become.
At Christmas time, I set up a tiny tree, each shining bauble a crushing, bittersweet memory. I received an invitation from friends for Christmas Day, but didn’t have any money for gas. I sat alone, the gloom brightened by the twinkling lights, pondering peace on earth. Peace for me.
Gradually, the snow drifts melted in the warming sun, and after the lonely, gray winter, the leaves and grass were exquisitely green.
Still, I prayed, “God, please do something.”
Still, He was quiet.
That summer, my garden flourished as never before, I gave away bags and bags of vegetables. To the people who cut up a tree for me. To the water man. What a blessing it was to give when I was so hopelessly needy myself.
One day, as I was mowing the lawn, a sparrow flew down and hopped along beside me, undaunted by the roaring machine or the hurtling blades of grass. For two hours, the little bird skipped along, sometimes pausing, then swooping to catch up to me, looking at me with his bright, inquisitive eyes. When I stopped to take a break, the sparrow flew away. An hour later, I started up the mower again. Within seconds, my small friend returned and cheerfully travelled with me until I finished the job.
Not so many days later, a friend called. A tiny sparrow of a woman, but with a faith that soared like an eagle, she prayed for God to bless me and told me I needed to be brave and fight against a lifetime of lies and fears, to embrace Him. She reassured me that God had never abandoned me and was as close to me as my next breath. Doubt tangled around my heart, but I prayed.
And soon after, I was reunited with my children. Money came into my mailbox. I found a job. And, miraculously, I met someone who’d become my soulmate, the answer to every prayer I’d never prayed, not daring to believe God would bless me.
All the time, God had been all around me, in every leaf, every snowflake, and every faithful sparrow. If I’d stopped to listen, surely I’d have heard Him say, “I hear you. You are not alone.”
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Wonderful, powerful story. Thanks for sharing. Blessings, LaVonne
God bless~