Penny
Imagine having an accident and going into a coma. When you wake up your husband is gone and he’s taken the kids.
That’s what happened to Penny. It was part of a long, rough road that led her in late 2016 to the Julia Greeley Home. Estranged from her family after her divorce, she was living a dreary existence in homeless shelters. Her caseworker suggested she try the Julia Greeley Home.
“I am so grateful my caseworker suggested this,” she says. At Julia’s she finally began to heal from a longterm depression and what she calls a “ high strung, controlling nature” that made her difficult to get along with people.
“God has calmed my heart,” Penny says. “If I wasn’t here where would I be? Still living on the streets and struggling.”
Before tragedy and homelessness overtook her, Penny was a “a California farm girl” “searching for success.” She thought she found it in her quiet, introverted husband who was in the Air Force. Soon they had two kids, a boy and a girl. But parenthood couldn’t make up for the fact they were drifting apart.
A bad car accident brought everything to a head.
“When I woke up from the coma I was told I was single again,” she says. “I had a very rocky marriage, and my husband couldn’t deal with it.”
She struggled with continuing health problems and family estrangement. It multiplied until she lost everything, including a place to live.
Then she was referred to the Julia Greeley Home. Life began to take a surprising turn when Penny won a scholarship through our partnership with the Ward Family Foundation. As the second resident of Julia’s to be honored with a WFF scholarship, Penny established the Julia Greeley Home as a proven conduit of educational opportunity.
In the fall semester of 2018, Penny began attending college in Denver and is currently pursuing a degree path in social work. Her ulimate goal to someday become a mental health counselor and help others as she has been helped.
Not only did Penny earn high “A” grades in her first year of study, she was inducted by the Community College of Denver as a member of the National Society of Leadership and Success.
In addition, Penny has had her own apartment since 2017. She has come back to speak to Julia’s residents about her success, and urge them never to give up.
She knows what “almost giving up” feels like. Today, she can recall with a smile what, at the time, was a painful period in her life. It happened at a festive New Year’s Day dinner at the Julia Greeley Home. Penny had invited her father to join her that day. Previously estranged, on the first day of 2017 father and daughter were trying for a new beginning. As residents and guests went around the table expressing wishes for 2017, Penny’s father said something she will never forget:
“My dad gave me the best compliment, he said how happy he was that I was here, and then he said, “I’m grateful that my daughter is here and not living on Colfax or in the snow!”
Residents and guests clapped, and her dad hugged her.
It was a long time since she had reached out to family in that way.
Although her husband had left, she credits her mother-in-law with introducing her to a relationship with Jesus Christ. Today she sees her relationship with her mother-in-law as part of God’s merciful plan.
“I wasn’t raised in a Christian home,” she says. Depression had blocked her from a relationship with God, and all she could think was, “Why did he toss me aside?” But when she recovered from her coma, “I think God got my attention with that.”
Spiritual support is key, she says, and Penny cherishes the gift of a Bible, received by every resident at Christmas. “The Holy Spirit is giving me insight” Penny explains. No matter what the challenge, “I ask God, I don’t know how to resolve this but you do.”