Kindness is a New Pair of Shoes

I attended Minneola elementary school from K-2nd grade before we moved away from Florida to Texas. The school sat on a few sprawling acres slightly to the south of the Citrus tower and north of Lost Lake. I loved how, at recess after lunch, I could climb the slight slope on the northwest corner of the playground and sit under a big tree and hear the church bells chiming their beautiful songs off in the distance. I also remember my teachers, Ms. Narscico, Ms. Polly, and Ms. Winter like it was yesterday. Ms. Narscico was my sweet kindergarten teacher with a fun, engaging classroom where I learned my nursery rhymes, counting to 100, the 5 little pumpkins song, and where we helped the Farmer in the Del take his wife, cheese and farm animals somewhere in the Dairy-O. In first grade, Ms. Polly had us doing crafts, learning to read, and doing science experiments where I brought in a last minute can of moldy cat food that elicited lots of “Ewwws”! In second grade, Ms. Winter focused on math and science. She was nice enough most of the time but if you crossed her she could be as mean as a hornet. I remember one time, when she mistook me for the talking little girl behind me, she came over and told me to shut my mouth. When I tried to explain to her that it wasn’t me talking she grabbed my hair by the top of my head and whipped my head around so hard I peed my pants on the spot. She called me up later to the front of the class and apologized to me, admonishing me not to tell my mother what had happened when I got home since she had so graciously apologized to me after I had been so naughty. Unfortunately, I never said a word.

I loved this school and recall most of my experiences here as very positive ones. Even the school principal, Mr. Cory, stands out in my mind as someone who showed exceptional kindness to his students. I remember a school fieldtrip to SeaWorld where each student had to give around $15 to go, but my family couldn’t come up with the money so my sister and I weren’t scheduled to go. He called me into his office and said that since I had a good report from my teacher, he was going to pay for me to go, but not to tell anyone. I didn’t realize it then but teachers do stuff like this all the time. Even though they are paid far to little, so many are willing to take from their own pockets to buy their students what they need. Thank God for teachers like this, I hope they all get a special blessing for the many unseen things they do.

I learned this first hand one day when I was 6 or 7 years old, and having a bit of trouble with my shoes. A boy in my class had pointed out the floppy holes in the tops of my shoes. I looked down and suddenly became overwhelmingly embarrassed. I decided right then and there that my shoes belonged in the trash. Isn’t it strange how something can seem fine and normal to us until someone else points it out as wrong, and then it’s like a blinking beacon of shame like Rudolph’s nose. Waiting until my class walked back to the classroom from recess, I found the nearest trash barrel and threw my shoes right in. Only now I had the dilemma of getting through the rest of the day barefoot, but I figured I could try to tuck my feet under my desk and maybe no one would notice. I remember walking away from that trash and praying in my heart that God would help me get another pair of shoes. I just didn’t know he’d work so fast.

I believe that God often uses the right people at the right time to answer prayers, and I believe that is what happened this day. As I passed the main office on the way back to class, I glanced inside because the door was wide open. This was odd because I was used to seeing this door shut, probably for air conditioning reasons. I made quick eye contact with the school secretary who promptly called out my name and said hello. I stopped long enough to wave back when she noticed my bare feet. “Joy, where are your shoes?” she asked. “I threw ’em away,” I answered, trying to sound as casual as I could about it. “Why on earth would you do that?” she countered, with a tone of confusion and disbelief. “Because they were old,” I said, a growing awareness that maybe I was in trouble. “Show me where you threw them away,” she said as she rose from her desk and came to meet me in the hall. “You can’t go barefoot in school and you can’t throw away your shoes just because they’re old,” she said in a kind but firm voice. I led her to the trash and she peered in. She paused. “You’re right, those do belong in the trash,” she stalled, taking a moment to consider her options. “Do you want me to call your mom to bring you another pair of shoes?” she asked. “I don’t have another pair and we don’t have the money to buy any,” I said, stating the facts as I knew them. “Well… (another pause) …I’m not supposed to do this but why don’t you come with me. I’ll bring you to KMART for some new shoes, but you can’t tell anybody they’re from me, ok?” It sounded like an excellent plan to me. I hadn’t expected my prayer to be answered so soon but I was tickled pink to be getting a new pair of shoes within the hour. I distinctly remember the excitement I felt standing in the shoe aisle as I chose a white pair of sneakers with rainbow sparkle shoelaces. They were the prettiest sneakers I had ever seen. On the way back to school I sat in the back of her car and tried to think of what I should say. “Thank you. Umm, my mom will pay you back when she can. And I really like my new shoes,” I said. “You’re welcome, and you don’t have to pay me back. Tell your mom not to worry about it honey,” she smiled.

I walked back to my class feeling 10 feet tall. I just knew my shoes looked great and I felt like a million bucks wearing them. A few friends noticed and asked me where I got my pretty shoes. “I can’t say, it’s a secret,” I whispered. This only stirred up more interest and intrigue than I had intended but I held my ground. Later when I got home, my mom stressed a little about my shoes. “Aw maaaan. Where am I going to get the money to pay her for those shoes,” she fussed. “She said you don’t have to pay her back,” I assured. “I know she said that, but I’m still going to have to give her something,” she answered.

They spoke the next morning and said whatever grown-ups say in those situations, thank-you’s and reassurances and quick hugs, and then life went on as normal. Well, almost normal. I had learned a few lesson that would stay with me my whole life. I learned that God was watching over me and making sure others were too, at just the right time. I learned that the unexpected, undeserved kindness of others is important for those in need, if only to be reminded that they matter and are seen, which was a gift more valuable than any pair of sneakers I could receive. And I learned that when you experience that kind of kindness, you in turn can do the same for others when you are able.

1 John 3:17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother/sister in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

The Roots of Miracles

Welcome! I believe there are so many amazing moments that happen in a lifetime that it would be difficult to write them all down, but these stories are what I consider “the telling parts” of my life, because they are too good not to tell. I have told them to friends and even some strangers over the years and I’ve been told countless times that I need to write them down, so here I am, finally taking their advice. The truth is, I’ve wanted to write them down all along, I just didn’t know where to start. They are precious stories to me, not just because they are my personal experiences, but because they are a powerful testimony of God’s love and power, and I want others to be encouraged and strengthened by them. I’m almost 40 years into this journey and so much has happened, so deciding how to begin, how to lay a foundation for the context of my experiences, seemed daunting. That being said, I’ve decided that since this is a blog and not a chronicle, I will give a brief history of my early years and then get into some really great stories. So, this is the beginning, not so much of my life story but of my faith story, which is really where everything else that matters came from anyway.

What’s in a Name

I’ll begin when I was about 2 or 3 years old. Due to deteriorating circumstances in my parents marriage and finances, my family (consisting of my mom and dad, two older sisters and I) had just moved to a run down trailer in upstate New York from our modest, single family home in a sweet little neighborhood of central Florida. The trailer had no heat or hot water and was never meant to be a long term residence, but it put a roof over our head in the meantime. There, as my family unraveled over the spring and summer of 1982, my long term memory was taking note of the world around me. Some of my first memories are of living in this trailer, for the six or so months that it lasted, probably because it was such an extreme change from where we lived before. I was only a little girl, but I have vivid memories of a bear on the steps of this trailer as we pulled into our driveway late one night, and of me secretly eating watered down dirt, (caused by what I now know was Pica) that I imagined to be chocolate pudding, in the woods around the property. I would contract a parasite called Giardia from doing this and was admitted to the hospital for a week to treat it. I remember cold water tubs that my mom tried to make temperate with hot water from the stove. I can still see in my mind where I sat and played with a doll on the floor, trying to figure out the buttons, zippers, and laces on it’s clothes, as my father snuck to the screen door, bribing me with the package of M&M’s in his hand, to unlock it and let him back in after one of his random disappearances that could last for days at a time.

It is also here that I first remember my family sometimes calling me “naked J-bird”. I heard it so often, I thought it was one of my actual names, and so I answered to it regularly. I believe it was a phrase in a song at the time, but since it suited my streaking tendencies and fit with my first name initial, it stuck. Whatever the reason for the nickname back then, I’m using it now for my blog because it describes me in a way that is accurate for these stories. These are the naked stories of this J-bird, as transparent and honest as I can remember them; some from the early years of my life and some more recent, but all are my truth as I remember it.

The Seeds of Faith

I first remember hearing the stories of the Bible when I was a young girl in Sunday school in the town of Clermont Florida, where I was born and spent most of my early childhood, back when it was a small, sleepy suburb of Orlando. There were miles of orange groves, the Citrus Tower, and Lake Minneola where we cooled our tan little bodies during what seemed like a perpetual summer. I had the same 3 or 4 Sunday school teachers that rotated from week to week and our church family was so close that we called people aunt so-and-so and uncle-so-and-so even when we weren’t related. I remember the disappointment I felt when I learned, at eight years old, that none of these people were actually my relatives. I was so sad because I desperately wanted to be forever connected to them, and had preferred believing that I was. They were really good people, the best kind actually, the kind that practiced what they preached and paid attention to each others needs as best they could even when it put them out. My early church family taught me that nothing was beyond the reach and power of God through prayer and bible lessons and their faith and love put into practice. I believed with all my heart that God was real, that he knew me, and that this little blue eyed, blonde haired girl, living down a long dirt road in the middle of the orange groves mattered greatly to Him.

The Roots of Miracles

The roots of miracles began to grow when I was about 4 or 5 years old. I accepted Jesus into my life one late, sweltering June night at a Wednesday children’s church service at the red brick Christian Missionary Alliance Church my family attended. That night, when I took my first step towards God, I felt an immediate Joy come alive inside of me, like something that had been sleeping came suddenly awake, and I still see that as a genuine experience because as a child and I had no expectations of how that prayer would make me feel. After that, I really began to pay attention in Sunday school because I was curious about this new relationship with God. Some of my early thoughts about faith were humorously optimistic, like if I just prayed to God for the Devil long and hard enough, I could short circuit the whole broken, evil system that had begun ages ago and change things back to good. I was going to help save Satan’s soul through my fervent prayers. My Sunday school teacher encouraged me not to waste too much of my time focusing on this. But there were other truths and beliefs taking root deep in my heart and mind based on the real experiences I was having in my life through prayer; truths like God was good, God cared about me; and God was present.

By the time I was 4, I was being raised by a single mother with my two older sisters. We had left my father behind in New York and we were back in Florida living well below the poverty line. By “well below” I mean our $30 a month rented apartment down Cherry Lake Rd. was roach infested, with cement floors throughout. We had more bouts of head lice than bouts of non-head lice, such that when they checked our heads at school, I just wanted to skip the whole stomach churning process of being checked and weeded out in front of my classmates, and just assume the sitting position against the cold, cement wall with the other kid’s with chronic bugs and wait for our rides to come get us. When we couldn’t afford the lice medicine, my mother had us lay down on the truck bed and hang our heads over the tailgate while she soaked our hair with kerosene. It was old school, but effective. It killed the lice and a few brain cells I’m sure.

I remember times when I was between 5 to 7 years old, my stomach growling so long and loud, that the bowl of salty, crunchy dog food sitting on the kitchen floor became irresistible. I would share it with the dog and the roaches that had taken up permanent residence at the bottom of the dish. Another time I remember, during a cartoon commercial break, I opened the refrigerator for a quick snack, and found it starkly empty except for a container of mustard, so I ate spoonful’s of it until the growling stopped and I could get back to He-Man. I can still hear my mother’s voice as she said to us, “Girls, I can’t provide everything you need so you are just going to have to pray to God for it. The Bible says that God will be a father to the fatherless, and since I don’t have anyone helping me raise you, God will be your father.” And I believed her.

I know there is a verse in the Bible about having faith like a child, and that’s really how simple it was back then. There were so many big needs in our life that I didn’t pray for ponies or dolls, just mostly the essentials like food, safety, shoes, and help for the times when we were so deep down stuck in a jam, with no one else to ask for help, that prayer was our only hope. I remember some of my first prayers being for our truck and/or our lawn mower, both of which were always breaking down. I’d watch my mother walk the fine line of trying to restart the engines without flooding them entirely, and wiping the sweat from her brow as she tried to figure out what to clunk or fill to get the engine to start up long enough to at least get us home or cut a path on the lawn back to the garage. I would come out and stand next to her and we would both put our hands on the machines and pray to God to please just get them to start, and very often they did. But I was also beginning to form questions about the times they didn’t. Honestly, that’s still the greatest tension I struggle with in my faith today, gauging spiritual expectations of weather God will or won’t, knowing that he can but sometimes doesn’t, and how we are to respond to this seeming inconsistency.

So this is where my faith took root, down a long and dusty dirt road in central Florida, and if I only knew then where it would take me, not just in the world, but in my heart and mind, I would have had much more hope and determination for the future God had planned for me. I hope you enjoy the stories I will share of miracles, trials, joys, and lessons that sprang up for a little girl trying to make sense of her life in the dirt and clay on Cherry Lake Road in Florida; on through to the seven years we lived in the inner city of Fall River Massachusetts, where we navigated poverty, violence, gangs, and coming of age; the seven years in Middleboro, Mass, during my teen years when I was finding my way through high school and my first (and last) real relationship; the seven years in Fairhaven Mass, where my husband and I bought our first home and fought to own a business, start a family, save our marriage, and keep our faith; and finally back to Middleboro, where we expanded our family, focused on personal growth and the health of our marriage, and were finally able to hold our heads above water and take a breath. All of these stories are reflections of God’s grace and mercy, all are true, and they are finally being written down.