may the new year bring good health, prosperity , love and happiness to you all.
juana aka speedie/wildcat2003
----- Original Message -----
From: stephen smith
To: juana
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2006 6:15 PM
Subject: Fw: angels on earth!
----- Original Message -----
From: Colleen Ryals
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2006 7:17 PM
Subject: angels on earth!
In the summer of 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, to my 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,
crawled 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. I believe that God only gives three answers
to prayer:
1. "Yes!"
2. "Not yet."
3. "I have something better in mind."
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 you cannot imagine.
My instructions were to pick four people that I wanted God to
bless, and I picked you.
Please pass this to at least four people you want to be blessed
and a copy back to me.
This prayer is powerful, and prayer is one of the best gifts we
receive. There is no cost but a lot of rewards. Let's continue to pray for
one another.
Here is the prayer:....
Father, I ask You to bless my friends, relatives and email
buddies reading this right now. Show them a new revelation of Your love and
power.
Amen.
Colleen Ryals
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