Hangin' with the church ladies

This morning, I woke up and was a bit weepy thinking of things going wrong in our lives lately. I think our
run of bad luck should be over now. My car got hit by a "hit and run" driver the other day, as well as another
car parked right by it, and I just thought, "Oh what the heck else is gonna go wrong?" But I quickly put it into
perspective. I drive my own kid and 1 to 2 others home from school everyday so I'm glad it happened while
the car was parked and empty. I'm pretty sore though that not only did someone demolish the side of my car
and take off, but noone who saw it did a darn thing either. It's not easy living in Jersey. Lots of self-absorbed people here. Not many willing to go out of their way for anyone. BUT, this is why I hang out in church more. Today was the Christmas luncheon for my church lady group. I am the youngest woman there. The others are in their 60's and go up to 90's. They warm my heart, these women do. People from this generation are just different than my generation. They come from
a time when everyone knew everyone, and helped everyone. So, after a cruddy week, and a weepy morning, I spent the afternoon with some stellar folks who cheered me up considerably. One woman came
up to me and said, "Denise, we are so happy that you joined our group." I've gotten friendly with several of them
and am getting better at remembering all the names. Then, towards the end of the luncheon, they play a grab bag game with gifts that everyone brings in. They hand out playing cards and they call your card, you pick a gift from the table, or steal a gift someone already picked. It's pretty funny sometimes. The ladies must have liked how my package looked as they kept stealing it all around the circle.The women had trouble hearing the card that was called, trouble seeing their own cards, and sometimes trouble walking up to the table. I jumped up and did a little shuttling around to help some of them out. But they all giggled at their frailties. They didn't complain. They just joked and laughed. Then this one tiny lady went to get up and walk to the table. She was pretty unsteady so the woman next to her, also a tiny little thing, got up and grabbed her arm and the 2 of them walked slowly up to the table, arm in arm. I got misty. I said to Jean next to me, "how sweet is that?" She said, "very sweet, one can hardly see and the other can hardly walk." I had no idea that the one who jumped up to help has horrible vision problems. I left the luncheon to pick the kiddos up from school and I was tearing up on the way there. These ladies just get it. All the petty stuff of life is not important to them. I thought to myself that there is nothing more important to have in life than someone's back. Nor is there anything more important in life than to know that someone has your back. These ladies support each other. They pray for each other. They send cards or visit when one is not well. They keep tabs on everyone in the group. For me, they are anti-venom. When I'm out here getting the stuffing kicked out of me in this sometimes heartless world, I can go to church and be healed by these people. What a blessing. What they did for me today was priceless.