Christmas Blessing!

Although we were trying to make the best of a bad situation, our whole family has been disappointed about having no money for Christmas gifts. Also, we were wondering what we were going to do about basic needs like gas, food, and warm winter clothes for the kids. The huge unexpected van repair bill on top of everything else lately (vacation, 3 sick kids, etc.) really hit us hard.

Today Ron, the other trombone player in our church band, and his wife took Daniel and I aside at church. They told us that the orchestra and choir, when they heard about our situation, all took up a love offering for us. I'm sitting here crying again just thinking about it. We've never had anyone do something like this for us. We had completely handed this financial burden over to God because there was no sense being depressed about something so totally out of our control. He is so amazingly wonderfully able to meet all our needs!

Right after church we took the kids out to Fazoli's and told them that Christmas was offically "un-postponed" and that they could start making a list of things they might like to have. Then we took them shopping at Walmart for some warm things. We got Gloria and Latte snow boots and Latte also got a snow suit. As soon as we got home they put their new things on and went sledding with Daniel at the park! Our next purchase will be a coat for Kevin who has been making do with just a zippered sweater, poor guy. We're going to be very careful and make this gift stretch. In the meantime I'll probably be wearing out a few boxes of tissues since every time I think about this I get all weepy again. God is good! We are so thankful to have a loving church family and friends.