Thankfulness Series, Entry 3
Read: Luke 14:12-14
When Jeri was still in various hospitals and I was still in a
wheelchair all alone at home and trying to cope, the UMW put on their
capes and came flying in through the window to save the day. Out of
nowhere, food started showing up on my back porch, LOTS and LOTS of
food, really good stuff too!! At times it was overwhelming, a single
guy even of my stature can only eat so much.
Then one day it occurred to me that someday my wife, Jeri, will come
home, and I’ll need to feed her. So, I started freezing as many of
the dinners as I could. Then I had to start borrowing freezer space
from neighbors. One day my neighbor Ronnie, came with his son, Ron,
and he said to me, “Look, Ron! Enough is enough, someday Jeri’s
gonna come home and you can’t be running around the neighborhood
collecting up the dinners people made for you. You might as well just
go to Kroger!” And with that, they brought in a new chest freezer
and set it up in the basement for me. Then, all the neighbors who
were storing dinners for me started showing up and putting them all
in the new freezer for when Jeri would eventually come home.
When all of a sudden you can’t even get out of the house, eating
becomes a real problem. When Jeri finally did come home after nearly
6 months in 3 hospitals it was pandemonium. We had nurses, aids,
drivers, therapists of every persuasion, and some weeks as many as 30
appointments to keep; we were out 12 hours or more lots of days. I
cooked as much as I could, but for most of a year, if the day was
running too late, or we were just plain exhausted, we had dinners we
could just heat and eat.
The ladies of the UMW have gotten us and many others through the
hardest times of our lives and regardless of where we are, we don’t
eat anything until we thank God for all of you.
Ron Draper
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