One Sunday afternoon in the Fall of 2010, David and I had lunch with a friend after church. We had been married less than two months and I was just a few weeks pregnant with our first child. As we left our friend’s apartment and walked to our car in the parking lot across the street we heard someone call out to us. “Can you help me?!” she cried out. She came over to us and began to ask us for a ride to the bus station several miles away. We were headed for home, several miles in the opposite direction. We looked at each other over the roof of the car and with eye contact and some general shrugs between the two of us agreed to help her. We wanted to be kind, to be the hands and feet of Jesus where we could, to not put our own agenda (Sunday afternoon nap!) ahead of serving someone in need.
David told her we would take her, the young woman got into the back seat, and we started driving. We asked her some questions – learned her name (I’ll call her Mindy) and began to learn her story, or at least the version of it she chose to tell. At times she cried, as she explained that she was leaving her four children at her mother’s house and was taking the bus to her sister’s home in another state. It was tearing her up to leave them, but she wasn’t able to stay there any longer. She said she was trying to lead a better life and her mother’s alcoholism was negatively affecting her, and she couldn’t take her children because her mother had custody. She proclaimed faith in Jesus and commented that she had seen that David had his Bible in his hand as we were walking from our friend’s apartment. We were somewhat skeptical, but wanted to help her if we could. We spoke of grace, forgiveness, hope and help for women struggling to leave difficult situations. When we got to the bus station, we prayed for her, sought to encourage her, told her we did not feel it would be best for us to help her financially, and I wrote my phone number down for her. She left and we doubted we would ever hear from her again.
I was surprised when she called several days later. Her sister was on the phone as well, and I learned that her sister was indeed a follower of Christ. I asked what kind of help she wanted from me, prepared to make it abundantly clear that financial help was not on the table. She said she just needed to find a church. Could I help her find a church? And so began a months long journey of trying to help Mindy and her children. She had a little girl about 2 years of age, and wanted to connect with other mothers of young children. I had recently visited a church nearby and had read in the bulletin about a Story-and-Sing-A-Long time for toddlers that was being held weekly. I tried to find out a little about it, and made arrangements to take Mindy and her youngest child. It was a little awkward, as I was only in the very earliest stage of my pregnancy and didn’t have my own children attending, but I explained that Mindy was trying to meet some other moms, and the three of us were welcomed lovingly. This group was led by a sweet young mother, Jennifer, and as we got to know each other a little bit she invited me to attend a Bible Study that she was part of. David and I also began to pick Mindy up to go to church with us and sometimes one of her older daughters would come along as well. She seemed to benefit from this connection, and never asked for money. Occasionally I would take her to appointments for financial aid for her children, to to the doctor.
Over time we learned that she was struggling with drug addition and to leave prostitution, a battle she rode the waves of over and over. We tried to connect her with ministries that might help her, but nothing ever took. During the winter, she called one day during a snow storm – crying and remorseful but also obviously hung over – could I come pick her up? She was at a friend’s house where she had been able to access plenty of cocaine. There were two feet of snow in my driveway, and I was six months pregnant – no, I was not going to be able to come and get her right then. The consequences of her addiction were terrible, and the truth about her life, her four children, not having custody, and the desire to both use and stop using was so, so sad. One day in the early Spring her sister called me – Mindy was drunk. Could I go get her. I did and took her to my home, which I shared with my mother. Mindy was a mess. I recall there was vomiting, hysteria, hallucination, and an attempt to escape across the icy back deck and snow and ice covered yard. She was putting my mother in danger, and my baby as well. I told her I would need to call the police if she did not come inside and begin to cooperate. Eventually she did, and she passed out on the couch. Things were not going well for her, and before long she took off, once again leaving her devastated children and family for the pull of a life that she both hated and loved. Later I learned she was in jail in another state.
While all of this was going on, in the months of the fall and winter, I had begun attending the Bible study that Jennifer had invited me to. Several of the other mothers who took their children to the Story Time that I had attended with Mindy also went to the Bible study. It became a time I really looked forward to and began to develop friendships with these other young or new mothers. It was during the time that the church we had been a part of for many years had disbanded and David and I were finding ourselves somewhat lost as we were trying to find a new way, a new church, new connections. Our church had been very isolated, very legalistic, very cult-like and very, very critical of anyone in our community who attended a different church. It was a situation God had graciously delivered us from, but in the early months we didn’t know how to “be” in a different way. One of the women in the group had formerly attended that church with us, and had been treated wrongly when she took her children and left. She could have been hostile, resentful, utterly rejecting of me, but she was not. In December, I was invited to a dinner with these other women. It was a really lovely evening, and when I got home I sat on the couch next to David and cried. These were women I had participated in judging, being critical of their choices to attend different churches, had been isolated from, and I hadn’t even known them! They were beautiful. Full of grace. Extending friendship and love to me. I was so thankful and so blessed and so humbled that they included someone like me – someone from “that” church. It ministered to my heart in a deep way.
Jennifer gave birth to her second child, a little girl, in the winter. Another woman, Joanna, had a little boy about seven months old. Two other women were expecting their second babies within a month of my due date. They were a wonderful source of information and encouragement as we approached the end of my pregnancy and things with Mindy fell apart. It was so interesting to me how God had used Mindy to lead me to these precious ladies, these dear friends.
In early April we learned of our baby’s brain hemorrhage and prepared for Daniel to arrive on the scene early. A few of these ladies threw a surprise baby shower for me and were so sweet and kind in uplifting us and our precious wounded baby in prayer. Daniel was born and they rejoiced with us and delighted over him and continued to pray. Daniel was small, and had feeding struggles from the beginning. There had been some mix-ups in the hospital and I had not been advised well on getting breast-feeding going. He had lost more than 10% of his birth weight before we went home, but we were starting to make progress, so they let us go. When we went to change his diaper the first time, we were shocked to see that the clamp from his umbilical cord had not been removed before we left the hospital. We called and were told to bring him back the next day for it to be removed. It was a divinely appointed mistake, as the next day he was still not eating well and a particular lactation consultant was on duty who spent a long time with us and made arrangements to come see us at home in the coming days. We were told we had to put him on formula, as he was not getting enough milk from me and the weight loss had to stop. We were feeding him with little pipettes, dribbling milk into his mouth. We took the advice and gave him some formula. He was so tiny, and his skin hung on his little legs with no fat padding. We had no other choice. What followed was a most miserable night as he screamed and wailed and pulled up his little legs and contorted in tummy pain. It was awful, and we were done with the formula. I was pumping around the clock and we were just not able to give him enough. We were told, if this has not turned around by 5 p.m., you HAVE to give him more formula. I was desperate and crying. What could I do?
I called Jennifer, and I called Joanna. Neither answered her phone. “Can you help me?!” I cried into their voice-mails. I tearfully explained in my phone messages that I wondered if they had any extra breast milk in their freezer that they might be able to share with me. That Daniel desperately needed to eat, but things weren’t going well. Even today I weep with gratitude as I remember Joanna calling me back within minutes, and being at my house within an hour with milk for Daniel. Shortly after, Jennifer did the same. Joanna’s baby was a bit older than Jennifer’s and it turned out that Daniel tolerated Jennifer’s milk better than Joanna’s as the content was more suitable to a younger baby. Together, Jennifer and I fed little Daniel for a couple of weeks. Jennifer pumped at her house, I pumped at mine, and a variety of people gave Daniel pipettes and, eventually, bottles of our milk. The weight loss turned around, and Daniel was no longer in immediate danger. So, here it is, Mother’s Day, and these were the circumstances approaching my first Mother’s Day. It was a frightening time, but it was a time of deep, deep blessing for me. I love Jennifer and Joanna, and even though we no longer live near one another, I will never, ever forget what they did for me and for my baby. And it was Mindy that brought us together – a struggling, lost, hurting mother of four who could not mother her own children, brought me to Jennifer and Joanna and the other mothers in that group. And their selfless love and generosity blessed me around the time of my first Mother’s Day in a way that I can hardly describe.
Happy, Blessed Mother’s Day to you, Jennifer Frost and Joanna Spotts. I love you both!
ebenezer hitherto 