Clothing Donation Story

Part of my job at Pacific Lifeline is to sort through donations, and due to the generosity of people who know about our shelter, there seems to be a steady stream of toys, clothing, etc. However, the stream had recently turned into a flood, and I was having to work hard at keeping on top of the piles of clothing that were coming in. As I sorted and distributed, I noticed that a majority of the clothing was in the sizes needed by a particular mother, Nancy, and her two children. I remembered back to when she would shyly ask if anything her size had come in, and how after asking for pajamas for her four-year-old daughter, the perfect pajama set came in the next day. Now I was daily setting clothing aside for her to look through. This was not a coincidence; it suddenly occurred to me that there was a Higher Power involved in this chain of events. Something was spurring people to give their clothes – a few who had come had even seemed a bit reluctant about giving their clothes away, but did it anyway. I had to get down to the bottom of this mystery, and I knew it would not be difficult to do.

The next time Nancy came down the hall to look at some of the clothing I had set aside, I asked her, “Nancy, have you been praying to God for clothing to come in for you?” She giggled shyly, and said in her wonderful Ethiopian accent, “Yes! God answers my prayers. I can never thank God enough because He always provides for me. I never want for anything because of Him.” I knew it!! Nancy is a person of prayer and strong faith. I knew she was behind God’s spurring of people to donate clothing to our shelter. I laughed and told her she was responsible for the influx of clothing donations with which I had been overwhelmed.