What inspires you daily?

“I’m thankful for every day that I get up. I love to garden, I have pets and I enjoy them. I have some dear friends that stay in contact every day.” – Jean Hill of Birmingham.

Hill’s advice that she would give anyone is, “Trust in the Lord.”

“Life’s lesson has taught me to trust in the Lord and He did that by answering prayer about where I was going to live when I needed a place to live. I had heard a sermon about when you pray, be specific because God wanted to give you the desires of your heart. I’d never heard that before and so I reflected about things that impressed me about a place to live. I was living with my parents at the time and they moved out of town, I was not quite ready to be on my own. My sister invited me to stay with her so I needed some time and it took almost two years. I just wanted a safe place. My brother-in-law had asked me how much I wanted to pay and I said, ‘$50 a month.’”

On a trip to the drug store, Hill ran into a young woman who she’d taught at a Methodist church and who lived in a duplex with her husband that was not big enough for the two of them. Hill told her that she was interested and later went to take a look at the place.

“I had prayed that I wanted a quiet place with nice size rooms, but I wanted the kitchen to have all windows, as many windows as possible. So, we walk in and it’s a nice size living room, nice size bedroom, and I went into the kitchen and the kitchen had windows on two walls. She said that he may want to go up on the rent to $55 so you may want to talk to him, and I did. He kept it at $50. That was my first big answer to prayer. That’s God’s blessing to me.”

These are the faces and stories of people from all walks of life who call Alabama home. People of Alabama is a Red Clay Media and Alabama NewsCenter partnership.