Signora Sheila

Struggling to live on almost no income ($200 a month), the year we spent in a central Italian city in the early 1990s was hard. Especially because people were so closed and suspicious of us. Not that we went unnoticed!

The drug addicts and unemployed we were helping often came to visit us. And that is only right. The needy should feel that they can turn to us.

We had no problem with that, but the neighbors? 

Either it bothered them to have the “outcasts” of society coming to the apartment building. Or they just didn’t like us.

They certainly didn’t want us living there, and even accused us of running a prostitution ring. And since I was the only woman around, guess who was accused.

So they told the landlord, “Get them out or we’ll call the police.” But he either didn’t believe them, or he didn’t want to lose the rent.

So we stayed. And our door remained, as it always will be, open to all. But things remained difficult.

I felt abandoned and forgotten.

Stricken with homesickness, harassed and slandered by the people, I felt abandoned and forgotten. Sometimes even by God.

“Lord, is this how you reward your servants?” I asked. By allowing us to be accused and slandered? By putting us through such hard and burdensome times?

Daily life had become a hand-to-mouth existence, often with nothing in the house for the next meal. 

But we never went without. A friend from afar would visit and leave money in an envelope. Unexpected money would come in the mail, even from people we didn’t know. And once, Hubby showed some tourists around town who insisted on paying him.

And we never had to turn away those who, oddly enough, always seemed to show up at lunchtime! No problem, we were getting used to watery soup anyway!

That’s why I was so amazed when one of our regular guests showed up with a bag and said, “This hasn’t been used since my mother died and I thought you might like it.”

Amazed – because you see, I’d had a wish. Just a tiny one.

But when it’s hard to buy necessities like milk and bread, even small things seem enormously expensive. So I hadn’t told anyone or even prayed about it.

But sometimes God answers even before we call.

And sometimes, he works through the most unlikely candidates. For out of that bag came exactly what I’d been dreaming of – an electric mixer! I was amazed!

And I struggled to comprehend that God had used such a person to fulfill my desire. This man, whose his life was in ruins, had been the answer to my unspoken request.

Two important truths

That little gift taught me two important truths.

First: God knows our hearts.

My inward request for a mixer was really a longing for something much greater than a household appliance.

I wanted life to be easier. I didn’t want to live hand-to-mouth. I didn’t want to be be hated and ridiculed, and treated badly. I wanted things to change.

God heard those inner cries. And it was like He sent that mixer, that no one else even knew about, to remind me that He always hears us.

To show me that He saw what we were going through. That He understood, and that He was still caring for us.

He knew that my faith needed a little boost in that moment.

But do little things like mixers really matter to God? Yes, according to Scripture they do. He designed the world with great attention to detail. And he cares for all of his creation, including us, in the same way.

The God who feeds the sparrows will provide for us too.

But more importantly, He wants to teach us to trust in Him all the time, and He uses even the smallest things, like mixers.

Second, that even when God answers, things don’t always change.

Christmas that year was difficult and lonely. Our families were so far away and we felt almost forgotten. I could barely speak Italian. Our neighbors continued to spread terrible lies about us. And we had no money even to buy shoes for our children.

But I had decided that even if we couldn’t have anything else, we should have our Christmas eggnog.

I needed that eggnog to restore my faith and hope. To help me believe that there were still some things right in this world.

But my special eggnog recipe calls for whipped cream, and whipped cream requires a mixer. A mixer that we could never have afforded. A mixer that inexplicably arrived at just the right time.

That year’s eggnog was without a doubt the best eggnog we ever had! Even though we had little else with which to celebrate.

Our situation remained the same. Nothing changed. Our year in that town remained difficult.

Likewise, your situation may be difficult and not improving. It may seem that God doesn’t hear or doesn’t care. But He always hears, and He always responds.

He uses difficulties to make us more like Him. And to teach us to trust in Him, even when the answer we desire doesn’t arrive. Because “no” and “wait” are also answers, and they’re always for our good.

God is always at work, in His own way, for our good. He is always listening. He always answers. Sometimes even before we ask.

Before they call I will answer;
    while they are yet speaking I will hear.

Isaiah 65:24

📷 Image credits: woman; mixer; others are mine