Sleeping with Bread

I hadn't planned on a SWB post today, but the post actually found me.  I think at times we tend to forget that there are people out there who sleep with bread all the time to one extreme or another. 

There is a young woman at my Curves who I have gotten rather friendly with who I actually knew before to a certain extent.  She was a client at the dictatorship veterinarian hospital where I used to work, so I recognized her immediately a year ago when I first joined Curves and we talked and chatted.  After my 9 month hiatus from Curves, she and I picked up where we left off.  Aletta is always very encouraging with me; telling me how hard I'm working and that she'd proud of me.  She's a Christian and we've discussed that as well.  She's generally a bright spark in my workout because she is always so upbeat and happy.

I knew she and her family had some financial problems because several weeks ago, she started working at Curves, by doing the house cleaning kind of things; cleaning the bathrooms and vacuuming etc and she made mention to me one day that it allowed her to be able to keep her membership.  My guess is that they are letting her work instead of her having to pay the monthly fee, which is nice.  I know Aletta has two young children because her son is JJ's age and we have talked about setting up play dates this summer.

Today, as is her way, Aletta was very upbeat and happy but in the midst of our conversation, she made mention of not having had a great weekend because she was away all day Friday and her refrigerator died, spoiling a few hundred dollars worth of food.  She told me that someone at her church had gotten them a new refrigerator, but they were unable to do any grocery shopping until this Thursday when her husband got paid.  She said someone had given them some deer meat and her kids were eating peanut butter and jelly and she laughed when she said her son had told her on Sunday that if he had to eat PB&J one more time, he was going to throw up.

I left Curves when Aletta went to clean and walked to Food Lion which is located in the same shopping center.   God was speaking to my heart and re-reminding me that there was once a time when I lived paycheck to paycheck and didn't always know how I was going to afford necessities.  I didn't spend a great amount (Under $30) but I did get her some things to get them through until Thursday, including lunchmeat for the kids and some dinner items.  I hurried back down to Curves, hoping she hadn't left yet.  She was back in the bathroom cleaning, so I walked back, handed her the bags and said "Hey, feed those kids something other than peanut butter and jelly between now and Thursday, will ya?"  Aletta promptly burst into tears and I had to hold my own back.  I told her that one day, she would be in a position to help someone and that then she would be able to pay it forward.  I'm praying that maybe I helped alleviate her need to sleep with bread this week.

What makes it even more touching to me is that on Mondays at work, I complete the bulletin for the coming Sunday and the Gospel lesson for Sunday is basically "Feed my lambs."  I know that Jesus didn't necessarily mean to feed people literally, but then again, I think there are times He expects us to do just that.

In other news

I was feeling when I left Curves that it was really time to stop sweating some of the small stuff, so I made it a point to get in touch with the person who was one of my very dearest internet friends.  We had drifted apart and then as it turns out, we both felt stupid and horrible about contacting the other  one after such a long period of time.  It was so good to talk to her (She's getting married this Saturday) and I don't think either of us will be letting our friendship go by the wayside again.

Happy Monday!  I think my commentors have all gone on vacation, or else they were sucked up by aliens (aka Phil Stacey).