living the truth of the season and believing in miracles!!!

We had a visit the other day....it came as a suprise.
On Sunday evening I got a text message from the pastor of the Deaf church where i used to teach Sunday school and provide child care for Wednesday night Deaf bible study about 2 years ago now. He asked if he could meet with me and the family on Monday some time in the evening, I wasn't sure what it was about but of course I said yes.
Monday all day I wondered what the reason for Jeff's visit was? finally I decided, It must have something to do with my visit with Mrs. Sampley and her asking me what the names and ages of the kids were. I surmised that they were probably going to bring over some small gifts for the kids, and I was grateful for the opportunity to have a few extra things under the tree since at that point each of my 3 children had exactly ONE gift from us to unwrap and one or two gifts that my mother had sent...that was all that would be under our tree this year, and although I was remaining positive that we actually HAD a gift to unwrap, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed by the circumstances.
Monday was also that day that Rob picked up his last and finally check from his job, it was $430.00...our bills as of Monday that were all due by the 1st of Jan. were $1,030.00 without gas for the car or groceries factored in. I had decided i would pay for the cell phones, so that we could get the calls for unemployment interview and hopefully the VA medical benefits, and maybe my worker for food-stamps, and I would buy a few groceries and put a little gas in the car. Everyone else would just have to wait or come and take/shut off what was theirs for failure to pay, and if the food didn't last, we would go to the food bank. In the mean time I had decided, we would enjoy our little Christmas, and do what we could to make things work till some of next quarters loan money came from the college after the new year.

Monday we had just finished a quite yummy dinner when Jeff sent a message asking for my address. I have to admit I was a bit nervous since we haven't used a whole lot of sign on a regular basis!
Jeff and his wife were soon at our door and I was motioning them to come in out of the rain, they had with them a bag full of little stuffed animals and goodies for the kids that they said we could wrap or give to them, whatever we wanted to do, and they handed me a card, and asked that we not open it until they left. We all stood in the kitchen for a while and chatted about how big the kids were getting, how his boys who are around Roberts age, play 8 man football for a local christian HS here in town, and about when Jeff was younger and stayed in a "room for rent" where he ate every morning at the restaurant down the road in the truck stop after he got up to feed the horses and head to the local community college for classes, and we made fun of my cross eyed little Mosimo kitty. It was a very nice visit with some nice laughs! After many thank yous and Merry Christmas's, and hugs the Pastor and his wife left, and Rob grab the card off of our bar to open it.

As Rob opened the card, I was standing behind him and the first thing he said was "Holy SHIT!" I turned around in time to see 3 $100 bills fall onto the bar, and I grabbed his arm! "Are you Kidding!?" was all I could say.... "there's more!" is what he said...under the cash was a $100 target gift card, $25 chevron gas card, and $50 foodmaxx grocery store card! I was honestly in shock...I couldn't speak, I couldn't cry I think I just kept saying "oh my God!" over and over and over again. after about 10 min. I finally realized that I needed to text Jeff. I sent him this message:
"please tell everyone who made this blessing possible for our family thank you from us, I have tears of gratitude right now and can't tell you how much this means to us!"
his response was simply: "God bless you all, Merry Christmas!"
it was at that point that I really cried, I was so overwhelmed with the blessing we had received!

SO, today, I went Christmas shopping! I got one more gift for each of the kids, a gift for my husband, and a gift for a few of our closest friends. I put gas in my car, and I bought some things from the grocery store. We still have some cash left so I am saving it to help with some expenses. I truly feel blessed this Christmas Season! and I can't say enough thank you's to our Church Family at LBC Deaf Church!
God is GOOD!