B is one of our Teen Moms. She lives alone, receives no child support from her child’s father, and tries to get by in her subsidized apartment. B is one of our best moms in our program. she is completely devoted to her child, makes every parent/teacher conference and somehow manages to go to college full time and work 20 hours a week. She is within a semester and 1/2 of graduating with honors and recently housing raised her rent to the total amount that she makes per month. In their infinite wisdom they have decided that all her grants and loans that B has earned for college should be counted as disposable income. B called me(Ray) crying hysterically from the social services offices. She had gone there to plead her case for a reduced rent. But graduation only a few months away she was told she needed to quit school. She was living beyond her means.
What kind of world do we live in where the best we can offer a brilliant, hard-working, young single mom is welfare? Of course B will finish school. Ruth and I will make sure of that by borrowing from our retirement if necessary. As we sat and talked with B yesterday, we told her of a God and Savior who makes a way through the hard places. Her remark was “I can’t trust the system, I have to trust Jesus.” As we talked, I encouraged B to remember times when God had rescued her in her past. As the afternoon grew longer, the room grew darker and she shared stories of what she now realizes was God’s amazing grace. Hope and change don’t come from the system, they don’t even come from the finest, most well meaning people. They come in fact from the Creator and Transformer of all things.