Monday, 24 December 2007

• Charity

  This is a terribly hard to admit feeling.  My family is poor.  We currently live with my family and do our best to work around the house and try to lighten the load to help them out a little bit for their generosity.  The work I was doing at the vet clinic has ended as the season is slow.  My transcription has started up again, but paychecks take a month to get after the pay period closes so I won't have anything in a long time.

  Today at church during prayer time, I was approached by a lady who said, "I feel like you are going through a hard time.  How can I pray for you?"  I tried not to let my voice crack as I said, "Yeah, I've been trying to get a job for 8 months.  My husband is in school full time and watches our son and no one wants to hire a 5 mths pregnant person."  As she and her husband prayed for me, tears came to my eyes and I hugged my 2 year old closer.  "Thank you."  I said as we closed and sat down.

  Right as children were being dismissed for children's church (I lead the toddler group), the same lady turned around and slipped me a check, folded up.  I thanked her, tears again springing to my eyes and tucked it in my purse.

  This afternoon, I opened the check and found it was much higher than I could have ever imagined.

  Receiving charity is hard.  My husband was laid off when I we 6 months pregnant with Cameron.  Somehow, our prayer requests got into the right hands and we ended up being adopted by a home-group from our last church.  On Christmas Eve, they drove down and handed me an envelope with a "small" gift.  Inside were 6 crisp $100 bills.  It was a total shock.  During that season, we were also sent several gift cards to the local grocery store totalling several hundred dollars.

  Last Christmas, we were told that there was something at our church waiting for us.  When we showed up, we were gifted a gorgeous used Bonneville car, from an anonymous donor.  I was a stay at home mom, my husband was working a very low-income job and we were scraping by, barely.  We now had a car we could afford for me to drive into town when I needed to when my husband was working with the other car.

  When we moved to CA, I didn't want to be the receiver of charity again.  I wanted to be the giver.  With all that has happened in the last 8 months, I now realize it's not what kind of season I'm in right now.

  I don't know if this will be very clear, but our church's gifts to us are what kept us out of government assistance in Nebraska.  I am forever grateful to these churches that have given over and over again.  I praise God for the action that someone took to help us out.  I praise God that He moves people in the ways that he does.  I hope this comes out right and is understood by those that read it.  Someday, I want to be the giver or the enabler to fill someone else's dreams.  Until then, I remain incredibly thankful during this holiday season.

   

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