What Goes Around Comes Around

I was honored to be included in your Sunday Zoom the last 9 months. I am also honored to be asked to be included in The Gates Season of Service this year. Of course I would have been excited to get any of your names. I was thrilled to get the Gates with the best smile, that brings Sunshine to my Soul each time I see her.  

I want to give a bit of a back story. I love what I do. I love running the Parkway Motel and meeting people from all over the world. I don’t love cleaning rooms all the time by myself. It is really hard to find workers here in Orderville. Two years ago I was dreading my upcoming season of housekeeping. My lady, I had the two years before, had gotten a full time job. So, I said a little prayer for me to have the passion and strength to do the job myself or send someone my way.  

Within two days I was talking to a friend about a girl/lady that had moved into town. She had lost her young son to cancer two years earlier and struggled with anxiety and getting out and doing anything ever since. I had the little mind whisper of the spirit saying reach out and see if she wants to do housekeeping. I reached out and she was the best housekeeper I have ever had help at the Parkway Motel. She was super shy and closed off at the beginning, but as we worked together and made beds (if you ever worked for me that is one of the jobs that bonds people) each day. Jenny and I learned more about each other and became friends. I saw a mother heart mourning and showered her with my Dixie love. She was an answer to my prayer in 2019.  

Fast forward to March 15, 2020, opening day of the Parkway Motel. This little twist in my plans - within one week I had 90% of my reservations for the season cancel out. I had to tell Jenny I could not use her and I would have to do all the housekeeping for the season on my own due to budgeting. I missed having her around and hardly saw her. 

Fast forward to the beginning of November, Jenny texted me to see if they could use my fax machine. Come to find out her husband had lost his job the month before and they were getting kicked out of their house at the end of November. They, with their two teenage kids, had no job and would have no home for the holidays.  

You would be surprised how many cross country adventurers I meet each summer. This is a person who just starts walking across the country. In the olden days they may be called Hobos. Some of them are organized and have a plan. Most do not. I get quite a few that will stop and want to work for a room, they have no money. If there is room at the inn, I let them stay. Sometimes I have them work, but more times naught. When I ask them to work, I have them do yard work and always ask if they want to stay an extra day to help me clean out my storage shed, that was a mess! They seldom did a good job at cleaning my yard and never helped clean out the shed.  

I wanted to assist my friend, Jenny, who had been an answer to my prayers. I asked her and Rick if they wanted to do my Fall clean up of the yard and help clean out my back shed. Within a week they had my storage shed cleaned out, and my front and back yard cleaned up better than it had ever been. Another answer to my prayers.  

I could not afford to keep paying them, because of my financial disaster of this year. But I had room at the Inn. I decided to let this family stay for the month of December or until they can find a home. Part of the reason I am doing this is to be an answer to their prayer and 

“Because I have been sheltered, fed

By thy good care;

I cannot see another’s lack and I not share;

My glowing fire, my loaf of bread,

my roof's safe shelter overhead

That he too may be comforted.”

 

Another reason is that I had Tiffany’s sweet family as my service this season. I thought of Garrett and how he had lost his job this summer.  So when Rick and Jenny came to me about losing their job and home, I wanted to serve them in honor of Tiffany and Garrett's family. I prayed for what I could do, and that little mind whisper of the spirit again said, there is room at the Inn. We have been challenged by the prophet to “Hear Him”, so when I do hear him, I try to act.

 

 Tiffany and Garrett to me are shining examples of enduring through hard stuff. And they have been given some challenges. I am thankful for both of them and the Christlike example they are to me.  

 

It has been helpful for me to have a project during this Covid Christmas that could be weird and lonely.  But I have kept busy finding and helping with sub for Santa, setting up a Christmas Tree for this family and making them feel the Christmas spirit this season.