Eighteen years ago "Mary" was referred to Killingsworth.  Pregnant and depressed, she was alone and scared, she had just tried to kill herself.

Three months earlier Mary abruptly left an abusive marriage taking her two young children with her.  There was no shelter for victims of domestic violence then, so they slept in her car eating wherever they could.  Her children went to foster care when Mary became depressed, then dysfunctional on discovering she was pregnant again as a result of another of her husband's assaults.  Her children gone, no job, no home, no nothing -- she slashed her wrists hoping to fade out and bleed out.

Mary came to Killingsworth a most indifferent lady without any energy, without any dreams.  As she lived among us and participated in the life of our community, we watched a resurrection.  The hospital helped restore her physical life, and we believe, through the stability of Killingsworth, and the support and encouragement she received that God worked through us to restore her hope and sense of self.  Mary was alive again.

Her first job flipping hamburgers wasn't ideal for someone six months pregnant, so Mary enrolled in a nurses' aid training program, and graduated 2nd in her class.  A job was waiting on the other side of her delivery date.  As she participated regularly in pastoral counseling sessions we began to see more frequent smiles and hear concern about her children in foster care.  Her delivery date was the day she moved out of Killingsworth.  However, a Killingsworth volunteer and active United Methodist Woman took Mary and her new son into her home for the 6-weeks  recovery.  We got cards and pictures,  then news of her job at a nursing home, but after "Tom" was 2 years old, the cards dwindled, then stopped.

Recently, while in a physician's waiting room when I noticed a pleasant middle-aged woman looking at me.  Finally she called my name.  It was Mary---healthy, smiling, and looking very well.  Seated beside her was a healthy, friendly-looking teenager; it was Tom---there for a college physical.  While he was being seen Mary and I visited, and she told of difficult, but steadily improving years after leaving us....of job stability, and promotions, of continuing counseling, of regaining custody of her other 2 children, of joining and becoming active in church and, finally, after 8 years, of finding and marrying a "good-hearted man" who had adopted and helped raise all 3 boys.  She proudly showed  pictures of her older children with children of their own.  She grinned wide as she told me that  Tom was offered a scholarship to college this fall.  Besides raising her children, what had she been doing?....going back to school for LPN training, working in a hospital, and, 7 years ago moving to an elementary school to work as a teacher's aid in an orthopedically handicapped classroom of 6--9 year-olds which required her nursing background.  Hoorah for Mary!  Hoorah for resurrection!

I didn't pay attention to the mechanics of my check-up.  I was enjoying the realization that a six-month investment of time and care blessed by the grace of God had made a huge difference, but not for Mary alone.  Two children left the foster care system for good, and one never had to go; a "good-hearted man" found a family, and 3 grandchildren have a stable, happy grandmother....and then there are those scores of patients in the nursing home and hospital, and the little ones in Mary's classroom.  That is a great return on a 6-month investment, just a mustard-seed investment.  But Killingsworth is all about planting seeds, and faith in God's merciful capacity to give our lives back to us as a gift.