I did not write this story but it did bring a tear to my eye,in a good way.
Mulester7 sent me this short today & i thought i'd post it for all to read,i swear mule's a mind reader,whenever s#!t's going bad for me(accute nerve entrapment in my hip & back) i get something real nice from him in the mail.
>The Big Wheel
>
>In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and
>just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged from
>three months to seven years; their sister was two. Their Dad had never
>been much more than a presence they feared.
>
>Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they
>would scramble to hide under their beds.
>
>He did manage to leave $15 a week to buy groceries.
>
>Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings,
>but no food either.
>
>If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that
>time, I certainly knew nothing about it. I scrubbed the kids until they
>looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress, loaded them into
>the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job.
>
>The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our
>small town. No luck.
>
>The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I
>tried to convince whomever would listen that I was willing to learn or
>do anything. I had to have a job.
>
>Still no luck. The last place we went to, just a few miles out of
>town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a
>truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel.
>
>An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of
>the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the
>graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents
>an hour, and I could start that night. I raced home and called the
>teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to
>come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her
>pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good
>arrangement to her, so we made a deal.
>
>That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers, we
>all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at the Big
>Wheel.
>
>When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent
>her home with one dollar of my tip money--fully half of what I averaged
>every night. As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my
>meager wage.
>
>The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and
>bega n to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again
>every morning before I could go home.
>
>One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and
>found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no
>nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up
>residence in Indiana? I wondered.
>
>I made a deal with the local service station. In exchange for his
>mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me
>a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.
>
>I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't
>enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys
>for the kids.
>
>I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some
>old toys. Then hid them in the basement so there would be something for
>Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was
>sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be
>too far gone to repair.
>
>On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the
>Big Wheel. These were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state
>trooper named Joe.
>
>A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and
>were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just
>sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left
>to get home before the sun came up.
>
>When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning,
>to my amazement, my old battered Chevy was filled full to the
>top with boxes of all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the driver's
>side door, crawled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat.
>
>Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was whole case
>of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was
>full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the
>other boxes. There was candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries.
>There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes.
>There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There w
>as a whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were
>five toy
>trucks and one beautiful little doll.
>
>As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the
>most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And
>I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious
>morning.
>
>Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they
>all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop....
>
>THE POWER OF PRAYER. I believe that God only gives three answers
>to prayer:
>
>1. "Yes!"
>2. "Not yet."
>3. "I have something better in mind."
>
>God still sits on the throne, the devil is a liar. You maybe going
>through a tough time right now but God is getting ready to bless you in a
>way that you cannot imagine.
>
>My instructions were to pick four people that I wanted God to bless,
>and I picked you.
>
>Please pass this to at least four people you want to be blessed and
>a copy back to me.
>
>This prayer is powerful, and prayer is one of the best gifts we
>receive. There is no cost but a lot of rewards. Let's continue to pray for
>one another. Here is the prayer:....
>
>Father, I ask You to bless my friends, relatives and email buddies
>reading this right now. Show them a new revelation of Your love and power.
>Amen.
>
>I know I picked more than four, so can you.
Thanks Ronnie,your a good man & your story made me feel alot better
