The Mother at DHR

I sat beside this woman yesterday at the DHR office with her two kids. She looked at me with wide eyes and a smile to ask if I've accepted Jesus into my life, and --as a learned automated response-- I said yes. Moving forward, I asked the ages of her children --the oldest being 4 and the youngest only a few months. She proceeded to tell me about her church and her life. She told me that she had been sexually assaulted when she wasn't much older than her youngest, and had experienced sexual and physical assault throughout her life --the oldest being the product of one of these assaults. She told me that she lived alone with her two kids... Honestly I have no idea why this woman was spilling her guts to me, but something really stuck with me; even through all of the terror she had experienced in her life, she was able to smile, look at a stranger and feel concern for others. She said that she felt bad for being on WIC and foodstamps, but she didn't have any other way to survive. I honestly don't know the truth of everything she'd gone through in her life, but I felt compelled to share her story. When people talk about others who ride on the system and just want a hand out, they have no idea the struggles that some of these people go through.