Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Dumbfounded (02/20/25)
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TITLE: A Revelation | Previous Challenge Entry
By Linda Lawrence
02/26/25 -
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In her thirties she eventually landed the job that would give her many years of satisfying challenges and advancement. I was invited to visit her in Chicago and be shown her new life in the big city. It was an opportunity to get to know each other as adults.
It was at the Art Institute, splurging on lunch in the courtyard, pretending an awkward sophistication, when our conversation turned to the days we lived near a mall when Shannon was nine or ten. She and I would walk through Macy’s, as though we had plenty of money, and pretend to shop for outfits that were never quite “the right color” or “not exactly what I had in mind.” Thus never exposing the fact we couldn’t actually afford to buy anything. It was a game we enjoyed playing, before going to the little ice cream parlor on the second floor and sharing peppermint ice cream served in tiny icy aluminum ice cream bowls–something we could ALMOST afford.
I was reminiscing about the HUD (Housing and Urban Development) apartment we lived in, when Shannon suddenly had the inkling of something that had never occurred to her. “We were in HUD housing?” she asked, quizzically.
“Yes.”
“We were poor?” She seemed dumbfounded.
“No!” I said, “We just didn’t have much money.”
“That’s the same thing . . .” she murmured, looking at me with perplexed eyes.
“Honey, surely you remember how careful we had to be with money. Remember our church picnic you hoped would be like the one in Anne of Green Gables? Your dad was overseas, and I didn’t have enough money to put gas in the car. You were so disappointed. But God nudged someone at church to invite us to ride with them? Remember?”
“Not really . . . “
“Don’t you remember how stressed I was every September when you needed and WANTED new school clothes? But we had no more money in September than we did in August. But remember how excited we were with how God provided? The Alexander girls, just a little older than you, cleaned out their closet and gave you several tops that thrilled you—except you had no bottoms. And then we received that box in the mail from the Wallaces, and it contained pants and skirts, outgrown by their girls, that coordinated with each of the tops! We could hardly believe it! Don’t you remember?”
It was almost as if Shannon couldn’t hear me. “We were poor . . .” she mumbled, again and again.
I was dumbfounded that she was dumbfounded.
“Why are you so surprised,” I asked.
“I just thought you were CHEAP!”
I knew she thought I was tightfisted when I had to say “no” to buying the latest fashion. Children think their parents are independent and can do whatever they want to do. But I had learned early that I can’t “do it myself.” I was dependent on God to provide what was needed for my children and myself.
I hope that day’s revelation opened Shannon’s eyes to see how rich the poor can be—if they are dependent on God, a confounding reality.
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