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Getting
a Christmas Gift at Thanksgiving -- and an Easter Gift All Year Long!
"Lord, could you send some grocery money, I prayed.
"And would you do it this week -- now?"
My husband was out of work, and for some reason I can't now recall these many years later, he wasn't eligible for unemployment benefits. Now we were scraping bottom. Our young children didn't understand why we never had hamburger anymore, nor even their favorite vegetables. (Things were so bad the town pigeons were beginning to look good as a food source, though it would have been illegal to kill them. :o) So I asked the only One who could help. He had several times in the past and I knew He would again… I hoped. As a young mother, my faith hadn't been tested a lot wasn't as strong as it was to be later. My faith was beginning to waver at that time. My children had never gone hungry, but it looked as if it might come to that if God didn't answer in the next couple of days. "Heavenly Father, we are no better than others who have suffered in Your permissive will, so I don't mean to complain, but I'm scared. I need an answer soon… please?" A couple of hours later I got a call from my brother, an invalid who had been paralyzed in a car wreck several years before. He asked me to drive out to his house. "I want to give you your Christmas present," he said, even though it was only Thanksgiving week. He had plenty of time to sit and think on things so he usually wanted to do things early -- but a whole month ahead? He lived several miles out of town, and I only had enough gas in the car to get there. I thought he would probably give me a few dollars, maybe $10 as that was his usual gift. I was at least hoping for the same this year. If the gift should be other than money, I'd have to ask him for help to get back home. I really didn't want to. My pride, of course, and he also lived on Social Security Disability benefits. It would also be very hard to deny his request as he asked so very little of me. So I left the kids with their father and drove out. We had a short visit and then he gave me my "Christmas" gift: $50 cash -- on the day before Thanksgiving! Fifty dollars! Then, that much was like $200 or more today. Now I could buy both gas AND groceries -- for two weeks! Even though it was supposed to be a month-early Christmas present and was given at Thanksgiving, I have never doubted that this was really a just-right-on-time answer to prayer. My faith has grown since then, of course, and now I can look back and see God's faithfulness in every situation, good or bad.. Though my prayer was answered at Thanksgiving in the form of a Christmas present, the most important gift ever given me was an Easter gift. God gave His Son to die for my sin, but even that would have been in vain had there been no resurrection. I am so thankful I have a risen Saviour to honor this Easter, the only One who ever conquered death and the grave, a God who not only forgives sin but gives His children eternal life with Him in heaven. He also loves us NOW and cares about the day to day things in our lives. He proves it to us every day.
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