Many years ago I was in a marriage that was an emotional and financial disaster. I had done all the responsible things in life. I went to college and became a teacher. I took care of my two young children and a large run-down house in a pleasant neighborhood. We were very active in our church and had many friends. We looked like your average suburban family. But I couldn’t support four people and a house on a teacher’s salary alone. We were deeply in debt and our house in disrepair. I was using a second mortgage to buy groceries and ironically, to pay the mortgage. The years of disappointment and stress finally ended in divorce—something I never dreamed would happen to me.
I was raised in the middle class, but now I suddenly had a taste of what it must be like to be poor. I learned that anything that could happen could happen to me. No one is immune to one bad decision changing the course of life. I was certain I would be better off on my own and I would have been, but while going through the agony of divorce my teaching job was reduced to half time with no medical insurance. I imagined living in my parents’ basement with two kids, a dog and a canary.
As hard as I tried to hide my struggles many people from my church family offered to pay a month’s mortgage or help in other ways. I turned them all down. I felt ashamed of my situation even though I had done nothing to cause it. It felt humiliating to accept help.
One day my children and I were in the living room after school and the doorbell rang. The delivery person at the door was holding a large beautiful plant—a peace lily. I brought it in and opened the card. There was no signature, but ten one-hundred dollar bills floated out onto the floor. A miracle and an enormous amount of money at that time. I never found out who sent this anonymous gift, but it carried us over until I was offered a new full-time teaching job on the very last day of August.
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