One who is gracious to a poor man lends to the Lord. And he will repay him for his good deed. (Prov. 19:17)

Charitable human beings like Joanie Zigmond are considered by yours truly to be the essence of virtue. After all, this really is the way the mercy of our good and gracious God is often passed on to us mere mortals. What seems to me even better is that Joanie is motivated by a true desire to be useful without the thought of being somehow repaid. I have for many years watched Joanie from afar and been not just a little awestruck by both her grace and her beautiful soul. Today is the day I’ve finally decided to tell her how inspiring she is to me. She’s pictured below with her daughter, Olivia, and her husband.

Joanie is the incredibly stunning wife of a handsome ex-military guy named Scott for whom I also have great respect. She’s the mom of a gaggle full of equally beautiful young women. I kid you not, the whole darn lot of Zigmond women look like models. This family won the DNA lottery…just sayin’. Here’s the thing, though. Absolutely and without a doubt this would matter to me not a stitch were it not for the integrity and character of the Zigmond clan– and this most certainly starts with Joanie. As a mom she is unbelievably supportive and filled with the love of the Lord. Her girls are truly blessed beyond all telling.

Compassionate, faith-filled and gracious are the words I would use to describe Joanie Zigmond. She’s done quite a bit of work for the poor in our community and well beyond through her development efforts with Samaritan’s Feet International, for instance. Not only that, but she’s a powerful ally for the arts community, especially Gregory Hancock Dance Theatre. I’m woefully underreporting here, but I think you get the idea.

I met Joanie because of her youngest daughter, Rebecca, who attended a decade of school at St. Louis de Montfort with my youngest son, Zach. She and I were stomping the halls at SLDM well before that, however, as both families just completed darn near 2 decades with a child enrolled there. Rebecca and Z are now freshmen together at Guerin Catholic High School. Before I knew anything about her, I was certain Joanie was a woman of God who was filled with grace by the company she kept. Our friends do often give us away, and the folks who stuck close to Joanie were in my humble opinion some of the absolute finest people of faith I had encountered in my church community.

Thank you, Joanie, for inspiring in me a deeper desire to pitch in where I can for the benefit of those with less. I’m grateful too for your beautiful witness of what it looks like to be a woman of deep faith– at all times. Sometimes we fail to speak to others who have truly made a difference to us by their example of living lives filled with kindness, grace, and love about how awesome they are in our eyes. 2019 is my year to speak up, I decided. Therefore, I hope you hear that in what I’ve written here, because I mean these words most sincerely. Keep on keeping on, Joanie. You are doing so many things right and you are AMAZING!