A "Corral" full of some of the best music anywhere
~Angels in Indiana~
Count your blessings, I did after I read this story...
God is sooo good!
"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 a whole 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.