Blessings Then Blessings Now

by Donna Poole

John locked the church door the Wednesday night before our first Thanksgiving at our little country church. We didn’t have any outside lighting at the church yet, so we held on each other and two-year-old Angie, laughing our way in the dark, trying to get to the car without falling. Johnnie was due to arrive in less than a month and my balance was precarious at best.

Our old car didn’t have a chance to warm up on the short drive home on the dirt roads. We were still shivering when we pulled into the driveway of the little farm tenant house the church rented for us to use as a parsonage.

“Honey, look at all the cars!” I said.

“Looks like everyone who was at prayer meeting and lots of people who weren’t,” John answered.

Prayer meeting didn’t start until 8 p.m. back in those days to give the farmers a chance to finish chores. By now it was well after nine o’clock. We were puzzled by the unexpected company so late. Many of them had to be up well before dawn to begin milking.

We were even more surprised when they all followed us in the house carrying boxes and paper sacks. They piled the packages on our table and on the floor around it.

They smiled at us. “Well, aren’t you going to unpack everything?” someone asked.

Our wonderful church people watched as we unpacked more groceries than our little house had room to hold: flour, sugar, soups, pasta, potatoes, spaghetti sauce, peanut butter, jelly, coffee, home canned goods, milk, butter, eggs, apples, and bags and bags of meat; turkey, chicken, hamburger, roasts, and steaks. They hadn’t forgotten Angie either; she squealed with joy when she found treats they had packed just for her.

John and I looked at each other trying to hold back tears. How many times had we stood in the aisle at the grocery store trying to decide whether to put back the coffee or the toilet paper? We knew the coffee had to go, but oh it was hard putting it back on the shelf. Bills came first; food came last. Now we had so much food we didn’t know where to put it all. Our church people couldn’t pay us much back in those days, but we weren’t going to go hungry that winter.

“Happy Thanksgiving!” they said. They hugged us and left. Then we cried.

There were many lean years like that at our country church, years when we saw God’s hand in a visible way meeting our needs week by week. Finally, the congregation grew large enough to give John raises. I began getting regular assignments to write curriculum, and finances weren’t so lean.

Then came 2020. John lost some income. The company that had hired me on a regular basis for many years declared a one-year freeze on hiring. New bills tucked themselves into the mailbox with the old ones we were used to seeing each month.

But our faith never wavered, right? We know God far better now than those two kids who unpacked all that Thanksgiving food forty-seven years ago, right? When the fuel bills came, I never asked John how we were going to pay them, did I? When vehicles broke down again, when we had to make yet another trip to a doctor, hospital, or pharmacy, we trusted without a shadow of doubt, didn’t we?

Why do we sometimes act like orphans when we have such a loving heavenly Father?

I wish I could tell you all the wonderful, unexpected ways God has met our needs this year. If I start, I know I’ll leave someone out. But I’ll share just a few. One vehicle died, and someone gave us another one. Who does that? Twice a neighbor knocked on our door with a large gift of cash that he said came from him and “others.” We don’t know who the others are; but we thank them and God. Once he brought the gift right after someone had just asked John how we were going to pay the LP gas bill. That someone wasn’t me, was it?

In big and little ways, God has met our needs through the years. This 2020 year was a lean year, and yet, it wasn’t. We got to see God at work in a way we haven’t seen Him since we were much younger.

The Sunday before Thanksgiving John showed me two envelopes from our church people. “Happy Holidays” was written on the envelopes, and they were stuffed with cash. Most of our church family doesn’t have much to give, and we were overwhelmed when we counted the money. We also got a gift certificate to a local meat market.

John put that money right in the bank. We know another LP gas bill will come soon, and we’re sure that gift from our loving church family will more than cover it.

We were so blessed our first Thanksgiving, and we are so blessed now. We’re ending the year with all we need and then some.

We might not have the pay and retirement packages pastors of larger churches have, but we have something far better. We get to see the hand of God at work in our lives, up close and personal.

Life doesn’t get much better than that.