Introduction
Deborah Akel is a writer living in Washington, DC. She wrote this true story in loving memory of her mother and father. "Jesus in the Thrift Shop" is the testimony of her mother's unshakeable faith in God, and how it influenced Deborah's life.This account is another featured testimony from you, the members and visitors of this site. Each story reveals a life transformed by Christian faith. If your relationship with God has made a significant difference in your life, we would like to hear about it. Submit your testimony by filling out this Submission Form.
A Mother's Story - "Jesus in the Thrift Shop"
Sometime around 1991, my mother asked me to write this story.I was working as a writer for the president of an international marketing firm in Canton, Ohio. Mom was proud of me. Especially the day my car wouldn’t start, and my boss sent his personal chauffeur in a limousine to our house to pick me up and take me to work. She thought I’d made the big time.
It was decided that I should write a story for her. All she had was a title: "Jesus in the Thrift Shop." She was relying on her daughter, the big-time writer, to come up with the rest.
"Isn’t that a neat title for a book?" she announced excitedly.
"But what’s it about?" I asked. I had no idea where to begin. "It’s about Jesus in the thrift shop," she replied, as if that should explain everything.
Mom liked to shop in thrift stores. She was always proud when she came home with a bargain. Even back in the day when it was embarrassing to be seen in a thrift store. Now it’s called "vintage" shopping. Mom was ahead of her time. She thrifted when it wasn’t trendy.
Mom believed that whenever she found an item she was seeking in a thrift store, Jesus was somehow behind it. "I was looking for a grey A-line skirt, and there it was!" she would say with childlike amazement and delight. "I’d been praying that I’d find a skirt just like it." After several such finds, all of them attributed to prayer, she suggested that I write a book about the presence of Christ at Value Village.
Always the cynic, I dismissed the idea. "Don’t be ridiculous, Mom," I chided. "God has more important things to worry about than your shopping list." But no matter how many times I tried to burst her bubble, she never capitulated. She was convinced that Jesus had a hand in her thrifting triumphs.
A Silly Idea
Jesus in the Thrift Shop. What a silly idea, I thought. Mom was forever trying to inject God and Jesus into every little happening in the course of a day. If she baked a loaf of bread and it came out perfect, it was God’s doing. If she found a dollar bill lying on the sidewalk, it was Jesus who had left it there for her. Nothing was too trivial to have been the result of divine intervention. And now she was trying to convince me that the Lord had hung that white blouse on the sale rack for her at the Next-to-New shop. I wasn’t buying it.In my infinite wisdom of youth, I often viewed my mom as a sort of simpleton. Gullible, unsophisticated, fanatical. While I’m politically liberal and open-minded about philosophy and religion, Mom was as conservative as they come and rigid in her beliefs. We had many clashes over our disparate views. Once I subscribed by mail to a Zen journal, and discovered that she was secretly throwing it away before I had a chance to read it. Tampering with the U.S. mail may have been a felony, but Mom thought it was a greater crime to allow me to travel down what she thought was the wrong path.
Over the course of several years, my mother repeatedly asked me to write her book. But I never took her idea seriously. I thought it was foolish, and that there wasn’t enough material to make a good story. Besides, I was busy with my own life and didn’t have time to indulge her.
I Finally Understand
Mom went to heaven on October 30, 2002. It’s taken me nearly 15 years, but I think I finally understand the story she was trying to tell.Continue to page 2 of "Jesus in the Thrift Shop."
