[Nfbf-l] off Topic , please share

[REPCODDS at aol.com]

>From one of my favorite Pastors. 

"  Our blessings are not the fruits of our prayers alone,  but those of 
another praying for us." 
                 
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 who ever 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 I 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. There 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 a  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, and the  devil is a liar.  

You may be 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.  

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.



I know I picked more than  four, so can you.