God's Greatness
by
Brenda Motley Widenhouse-Polk
When my children were teenagers, I was a widow raising them alone. I was also raising two other teens whose mother had abandoned them when they were young. Their father let them spend most of their time living with us. He was a poor North Carolina mountain man who knew his boys missed their mother. He was grateful to me for the help and love I was willing to give them. I could not replace their mother, but I could fill in some of the gaps.
We absorbed the boys into our family. When it came time for homework, I helped all five children. When it was play time, I got right in there with them all and we had a great time. The hard part was feeding five teens every day. The father of the two boys helped when possible, but there never seemed to be enough food to fill everyone’s tummy. All five children were good and helped me in any way I requested. I had been crippled from an accident and could not work. It was hard to do the chores, so their willingness to help was a blessing.
One day when we returned home from church, the children asked me what would be for dinner. Knowing the cupboards were about bare, I replied truthfully, “I don’t know. Guess the Lord will have to take care of us.” I led the boys in through the back door of our cabin and they raced for the cabinet to see what might be found. They knew from experience that I could make a good filling meal from almost nothing. But pickings were slimmer than ever.
At that moment we heard the front doorbell chime. I asked the children, “Who’s that at the door?” One of them said he didn’t know as he had not seen anyone approaching the cabin when we came home. Where our cabin was positioned, you could see for miles in all directions. No one could arrive at our door undetected, yet, someone was ringing the bell.
When I opened the front door, two small ladies about five feet tall were standing there. They looked very neat in their plain dresses. They were each holding a bag of groceries on each arm. I asked them where they had come from. They glanced and each other and smiled, as one said, “These are from One who loves you all very much.” With that they handed me the parcels of groceries, one bag at a time, and I handed them in to the children. Their eyes were alight and their mouths watering in anticipation of the feast to come for that evening’s meal.
As I turned back to the ladies to invite them in after handing in the last bag, they had vanished. The children and I ran outside to find them. There was nowhere for them to hide, but they were gone. We gave up the search and went back inside out of the cold. All six of us spoke in wonderment about where these ladies could have gotten to.
Hungry teens don’t focus on mysteries for too long, and these teens were no different. They plunged their hands into the bags of groceries to find out what our elusive visitors had brought us. There was not one package of processed food or cans of anything in those bags. Everything was wrapped primitively, and there were no writings on the packages to tell their contents. I knew, though, that these were bags of flour and cornmeal. I could also tell by the fragrance coming from the bags that this was all fresh foods.
Having been raised in a poor country family, I learned how to make wonderful, mouth-watering meals from the products set before me now. I would use this gift of groceries from the two little ladies who had disappeared to feed my children’s spirits and bodies.
While we prayed over the meal an hour later, one of the teens spoke out to the Lord, and said, “Thank you God for sending your angels to our rescue; for I was very hungry and we were at a loss as to where we would get our next meal. Now we have enough food to last at least a month, God bless our mama and the angels who were at the door."
Brenda Motley Widenhouse-Polk
NOTE: This is a true story about faith and grace. It’s about living with Jesus in your heart. It’s a story I like to share to let others know that miracles do happen, things we can't explain. As a born-again family believing God would take care of us ate that day. Thank you again, God, for feeding my children.
Note: Brenda went to be home with the Lord October 2009. Praise the Lord who ended her suffering.
