Grace and Grit

Confession: This post has been sitting as a draft for almost six months because I haven't had the emotional energy to dwell on this subject (goodbyes). Although I've known I wanted to tackle it for some time, I also wanted to write it from a peaceful frame of mind and it's taken awhile to get there. With the recent passing of The Sheepfold's founder, Fran Lundquist, I have been spending more time thinking of the thousands of women who must have walked through The Sheepfold's doors over the past 30+ years. Just in my short time working here I have known, loved, guided, served, and been blessed by at least 30 women and 50+ children. Some stayed just a few weeks, others months, and some even a year. That's just at my house, not including the hundreds of women I've met at the Sheepfold's other shelter houses and alumni gatherings. As I have written here before, domestic violence does not effect one demographic more than another. We have young women and ol

So I got a bit behind with posting last month, but better late than never right? :-) Here is another story of one of our moms from Christmas past. Natasha* came to the Sheepfold about a week before Christmas. Right in the middle of the office staff's busiest season! We were the only one of the Sheepfold's shelters that had an opening so Natasha was placed with us. She and her two children had been homeless for almost 1.5 years in the LA area, spending the seasons in and out of temporary shelters. Her son was 7 and her daughter not quite 2. Natasha had worked full-time in a warehouse until her daughter was born. After that, childcare was no longer affordable when combined with her other living expenses and after trying to make ends meet for several months they were finally evicted and spent their days on the streets. When Natasha and her children arrived at the shelter we showed them their room and let them get settled. Her son was wearing only a t-shirt, old sweat p