Chocolate Castles as wel

This morning, our preacher spoke from 1John of God’s love for us and what that truly means. During the Christmas season, we are continually reminded of that love, in that we see the nativity scenes everywhere and hear the stories of God sending his Son to earth for us. But in our everyday life, do we really stop to think of what this great love really means? This morning in his sermon, he gave the analogy of when one of our children fall, do we just look down at them and tell them to “get up and get over it, that fall wasn’t that bad.” Or do we instantly bend down and scoop them up and tell them that it will be alright; That we are there and will take care of them. That is what God does for us. We are His own and He cares for each one of us. He ask us to think about the last time we truly felt God “love on us”. It was at that moment that I remembered a Christmas miracle, which happened this past week. It was one of those incidents which, at the time, reminded me that nothing is impossible with God, but I hadn’t thought about the fact that indeed, He was truly “reaching down and showing me that He loved me and cared about even the small things in my life. Here is the story:
A few weeks ago, I mailed a package to a friend for her combo birthday/Christmas present. It was a book she had been wanting and an apron that I had made for her. She is a strawberry fanatic and so the apron was made from material which had cute little snowmen and chocolate covered strawberries piled up around the snowmen. I was so excited to send these to her, knowing that it would make her so excited when she opened the package. In my haste to get it in the mail, I reused an envelop that I had received a Amazon order in. Because it was a bubble envelop, when I tried to write my return address on it, it began to poke holes, so I didn’t put anything except my name. No address whatsoever. When I looked up her address in my contact list, I used the correct street address, but ended up using her old town and zip code, not the new town she had moved to over two years ago. Into the PO I ran and dropped it in the slot. I texted her and told her to be expecting a present in a couple of days. After a week, she still had not received it. At 5 am one morning, I awoke with a awful thought. It dawned on me what I had done. As soon as I could, I drove to the PO and told the guy at the window my story. I ask him if there was any way to track it. He assured me that because I had not put a return address on it, I would never see it again. That the package would go to their unclaimed mail station in North Carolina. I was so distraught. Realizing that not only was the present lost, but when was I going to learn to not do everything in a hurry. I texted my sweet friend and told her what I had done. It bothered me so much of what I had done and I began to pray, telling the Lord that I knew that nothing is impossible with Him.
This week, on Tuesday, to be exact, I came home and Randy is outside. He tells me to go in the house and look on the dining room table. Asking why, he quickly tells me that the package was on the dining table. What? But how? there was no return address, how could it be here? I ran in (yes, I did run,because this was truly a miracle) and there it was. Apparently, someone had seen my name and had taken the trouble and time to peel off the top label to see where it originated. So they had returned it and here it was! Thanking the Lord for Him giving me a Christmas miracle, i still didn’t think about what this really was. After today’s sermon, it made me realize that God does give us those special little blessings to show His love for us, even during the routine days.

Today, after church, Randy and I went to eat lunch. As we finished our meal, the waiter came to tell us that the couple sitting at a table over had already paid for our lunch. We were taken care of. Randy, of course, remarked, “well, shoot, if we had known that, I would have ordered the bigger breakfast”. He is such a dear. We walked over to thank them and they just said, “Merry Christmas”
This Christmas, my prayer is that I will be more conscious of God’s goodness to me. To look for the unexpected gifts that He sends to me and to also open my heart to someone who might just need to feel God’s love reaching down to them.