After years of tolerating marriage to an alcoholic husband, I finally reached the painful decision that the only way for my two young children and me to survive was to get a divorce.  It wasn't something I wanted to do, but it had to be done.
     However, even after the divorce, problems with my ex-husband continued, and I realized I had no choice but to leave town.  Once again, I didn't really want to, because I liked my house and the neighborhood, but I had to do what was necessary.
     I found a real estate agent, listed my house for sale and made arrangements to transfer my insurance sales job to Seattle, fourteen hundred miles away.  Then I sat back and waited for something to happen.  And waited. And waited.  Nothing happened for months on end. I changed real estate agents twice, but still there were no serious buyers in sight.  And I couldn't afford to leave town until I sold my house.
     The stress of the divorce and the subsequent living in limbo was almost too much for me.  I had difficulty sleeping.  In fact, the only place I could sleep turned out to be church.  I'd go there every week and sink wearily into the third or fourth pew.  I was all right through the early part of the service when we sang hymns, passed the collection plate and listened to the sermon for the children.  But by the time the main sermon started, I would nod off and not wake up until it was over.
     I guessed that Reverend McKinley, the minister, had noticed my somnolence because one day he announced that the title of his sermon was "On Sleeping in Church."  I don't have any idea what was actually in that sermon because, as usual, I slept soundly through the whole thing.  I apologized to the minister that day after church.  He took my hand and shook it warmly.  "Don't worry about it," he said.  "Obviously this is where you're supposed to be."
     Spring came.  More than six months had passed and still my house was not sold.  If my prayer to be shown whether I was right to move to Seattle was being answered, the answer was obviously a resounding no.
     One Sunday, Reverend McKinley called the children to come up for their sermon.  Once they were seated in front of him, he told them all to hold out a single hand.  Reaching into the pocket of his robe, he pulled out a roll of one-dollar bills and placed one in each outstretched hand.  Then he reached into another pocket and pulled out a ten-dollar bill.
     "You can have this," he told the children, who were sitting attentively, clutching their one-dollar bills.  "But in order to take this, you have to let go of what you already have."  He held the ten-dollar bill out at arm's length.
     It was an amusing sight.  Not one of those little children was willing to let go of his one-dollar bill.  Yet they were all old enough to know that ten dollars is better than one.  Eventually, Reverend McKinley put his ten dollars back into his pocket.
     At least that little demonstration kept me awake for a while, before I resumed my customary slumbers.  I didn't even hear what the minister said to the children after that.
     But that night in bed, as I tried to go to sleep, suddenly, the penny dropped.  My eyes opened, and as I stared up in the darkness, I knew exactly what I had been doing wrong - I was clinging on with my little fist to a puny, tattered one-dollar bill!  Of course my house hadn't sold.  I was still so attached to it.  I was so accustomed to moving in the same groove, day in, day out, through each room, attached to the placement of everything like a prisoner who has come to love the familiarity of his own jail cell.  In short, I had loved my house too much.  And I also realized in the same moment that I wasn't confident enough that a "ten-dollar bill" was out there for me in Seattle.  I couldn't see it, I couldn't taste it, I couldn't touch it.  As far as I was concerned, moving out there was a leap in the dark, and I was scared of it.
     As the lesson of the sermon continued to percolate into my suddenly alert midnight brain, I knew I just had to let go.  Strip off the habits of many years.  Make the big leap.  Know that I had a parachute and that I would land safely.
     And that was exactly what I did.  My attitude underwent a 180-degree turn.  I was ready to cast off the old, and I was eager for the new challenge.  I wanted that ten-dollar bill, and I released my one dollar to the four winds.
     Soon after this my house sold, and the children and I moved to our new lives in Seattle.
     Letting go of my "one" set me on a path that allowed me to follow a long-postponed dream of becoming a writer.  It also led to a new husband, three more children and eventually three grandchildren.  My "ten" includes countless blessings that I never could have imagined in my old life, but before I could have any of them, I had to open my hand and release everything I was holding on to.
     And yes, my "ten" also includes staying awake during sermons.

     Things have been hard for a friend of mine.  She and her six-year-old son have just moved into their own apartment, a break they needed to get out of a difficult situation.  The responsibilities of having their own home puts pressure on her while she tries to support her son, and once in a while, it gets the best of her.
     The little guy is a typical six-year-old: mischievous, energetic and curious.  His questions deluge her daily as he discovers the world around him.  Most of the time, she takes it all in stride, amazed at how easy it is to please him.  The promise of a simple cheeseburger from his favorite restaurant is enough for him to be on his best behavior for an entire weekend.  His mom is grateful she can give him what he wants, at least for now.
     One evening at the end of a very long day at work, the demands of the day were heavy on her mind.  After picking up her son at after-school care, the two of them went home for dinner.  While going through the motions of preparing his food and looking over his first-grade school papers, the tasks of being a single mom overwhelmed her.  Once she had him bathed and tucked into bed, she sat down in the living room and cried.  Everything hit her suddenly and without warning.  The recent loss of her beloved grandmother, combined with the responsibilities of single-parenting, was just too much.  Wiping tears from her eyes, she looked up to see her son peeking into the living room from the hallway.
     "Mommy, are you okay?"
     "Yes, honey," she replied.  "I'm just a little sad."
     He walked over to her and wrapped his small arms around her neck.  Though she tried to hold them back, her tears fell even more freely, and her son reassured her that everything would be all right.  Hurrying back to his bedroom, he returned quickly, handing his mom a small piece of paper folded into a crumpled square.
     She opened it and read its message: "I love you, Mom."
     She would have reached out at that moment and held him for eternity, but he had gone into the kitchen and was busy making her his special dish.  It's the only thing he can cook, and it took him quite a while to prepare it.
     Finally, he came into the living room with a plate of buttered toast.  It was all he had to give, that and the note.
     While he sat there proudly, she ate every bite, even though the butter was in a huge clump in the middle.
     "That's what love is all about," she later told me.  "He gave me all he had, wrote the words he best knew how to spell, prepared the only food he knew how to prepare.  I'm not nearly as alone as I was feeling that evening.  I have a wonderful son who loves me."
     Sometimes, when you least expect it, a blessing from God shines through your darkest moment.  For my friend, that blessing is with her all the time, in tennis shoes and tiny blue jeans.
     I asked her what in the world a parent could do when a child has given his all.
     She smiled and replied, "The next day, I took him out for a cheeseburger."