Six years ago, Mia was living a normal life as a suburban mom in Franklin. She went to the gym, took care of her family, and was friends with the other moms at her son’s school.
But things at home were strained. Bit by bit her relationship with her husband was unraveling, until one day it ripped in two.
After a domestic abuse incident, Mia and her son left their home. With nowhere to live and no access to money, someone pointed her to GraceWorks.
The day she walked through our doors, she was angry, lonely, and scared. Angry that she’d lost almost everything. Not just money and a home, but a life and a family she’d worked hard to build.
She lost friendships too. “When something like this happens,” she told us, “people scatter.”
She was scared about what came next. “I didn’t know how I was going to repair anything,” Mia said, “I didn’t even know if I had what it took to do that.”
But all that angst and fearfulness was swept aside when she met our staff.
“I’ve never had to ask for help before,” Mia said, “I didn’t know what I was walking into. And I walked into kindness, and I walked into empowerment…and compassion.”
Mia said the man she met with asked if he could pray for her. “He was praying the words and the problems that I couldn’t pray—or that I hadn’t been praying because I had been holding on for dear life. It just split me wide open. And remembering it is so beautiful.”
By the time she left GraceWorks that day, she said she was “mind blown.”
Because of our generous donors and God’s good provision, GraceWorks helped Mia get an apartment, food, and some vouchers for new clothing.
“To this day,” Mia said, “every time I come home, I put my key in the lock, I open the door and I think, ‘I love my home.’ . . . And my home is my home because GraceWorks helped me.”
“To everybody who has donated, thank you,” Mia said. “Thank you from me. Thank you from our community. You don’t know that you’re probably sitting or standing beside someone who GraceWorks has touched….God is never not present at GraceWorks.”
As we celebrate our 30th anniversary and look to the next 30 years, we hope stories like Mia’s continue to define who we are at GraceWorks. These are stories worth repeating. Because in each one a life of untold worth is changed forever.
Where grace works, stories change. Will you donate today and help us write the next chapter of GraceWorks?