A Wonderful Reminder of the Season of Giving
This is such a heartwarming letter, we just had to share...
Each year, our team sponsors a local family in need for the holidays in partnership with The Macomb Charitable Foundation. We recently received our latest issue of the organization's newsletter, which featured this letter on its front page, a poem written by a member of one of the families that MCF sponsors.
We know it's small, so please enlarge it so you can read it. Just one small excerpt captures the overall sentiment (and MCF's mission itself!) so beautifully:
While I was scraping together every check, barely surviving on part-time hours, they held us steady until I could finally stand again.
Now I'm full time. Still climbing, still tired, but grateful.
Because every step forward feels like a prayer answered. Slow but sure.
***
We’re on a Christmas list now. And for the first time in a long time
I can see my kids’ smiles stretch wide.
Not the kind that hides the pain, but the kind that believes we made it through the storm.
Indeed! The Power of Positivity at its finest!
Reprinted in Full:
"Angels at Room 241"
They sold our house. The place where love once echoed through every wall.
We had two months to stay, but two months disappears quick when you are jobless.
Hope stretched thin across overdue notices and nights I cried so quietly, not to wake my kids.
I’d look around and whisper, how did we get here?
2 months later we’re still in this room. Room 241.
I’ve learned how to make “temporary” sound like “home”.
My teens watched me fall apart gently, never loudly. They saw me count quarters
and smile thru hunger. They believed me when I didn’t believe myself.
And then God moved. Not with thunder, but through two groups with quiet halos.
Macomb Charitable Foundation and Motor City Mitten Mission.
They showed up with light in their hands, food in their arms and compassion in their eyes.
Everyday they delivered meals to this little hotel room, as if love had a schedule.
They didn’t ask what I needed, they knew.
When I started my cycle, they sent money for pads.
When the kids had no ride, they sent an Uber or a bus card.
When my faith got low, they re-filled it with kindness and compassion.
And when I couldn’t afford this room, they paid for it
so my babies wouldn’t have to sleep in the cold.
These rooms are smelly and have little critters that must be smoking cigarettes
cuz I smell it from the curtain that I try to spray daily with Febreze. But it’s what I can afford.
While I was scraping together every check, barely surviving on part-time hours,
they held us steady until I could finally stand again.
Now I’m full time. Still climbing, still tired, but grateful.
Because every step forward feels like a prayer answered. Slow but sure.
At work they’ve seen me cry and at my lowest, so they let me do my laundry in the back room.
Warm water, clean shirt, new start.
I’d look in the mirror and whisper, “you’re still here, you’re still trying”.
We’re on a Christmas list now. And for the first time in a long time
I can see my kids’ smiles stretch wide.
Not the kind that hides the pain, but the kind that believes we made it through the storm.
Room 241 isn’t where I thought I’d be. But it’s where we found faith again.
Where strangers became angels. Where survival found strength.
Where grace showed up in the form of several women
who refused to let me down.
Because sometimes, God sends His love in takeout bags and hotel receipts.
In small miracles that carry you through the night.
And in this room, this borrowed space, I finally learned
miracles don’t always shout.
Sometimes, they knock softly on your hotel door.
Room 241.