She works one full-time job and two part-time jobs to provide for herself and put her daughter through medical school. Three jobs.

Then the bottom fell out. She was laid off from the full-time job, had to have emergency eye surgery which left her temporarily blind in both eyes, and had to evacuate due to Hurricane Harvey. So at a time when she lost her main source of income, she had two catastrophes occur that brought in unexpected expenses.

She already had a good lead on a new job and expected to be hired soon, but she needed help in paying her rent to avoid eviction. It wouldn't make sense for someone this hard-working to find herself (and her medical-school daughter) living on the streets, so naturally CCSC made the easy decision to help with her rent. We offered other services as well, which she politely declined.

Here's what touched me most in the story. The person who met with her hand-wrote this on her case notes: Client was intentional about remembering 2017 as a turbulent year, but not a bad year. She said there were bumps in the road, but also opportunities for growth. She was grounded, faithful, and appreciative.

I'm thinking these might be my goals for 2018: to be "grounded, faithful, and appreciative."