Christmas Miracle

As many of you know this has been a very difficult year for me and my family. Sydney having her surgery, the long hospital stays, and helping Sydney through her recovery. The trials that seem to be at every turn has been very stressful and emotionally draining. The only reason we made it through those long hard months were the many prayers offered from our family and friends and ward members. We were able to live for many months with out my income because of the many money donations from family and friends and ward members. Because of this we were allowed to focus all of our attention on our tiny baby and making sure that she recovered fully from her life threatening surgery. I know that with out all the love and support and prayers from all the many people in our lives, we never would had been able to make it through what was the hardest trial of our lives! Surviving those few months seemed to be a true miracle in our eyes!

Our family has yet again been blessed with another miracle. Sydney's surgery left us with many bills that for the most part we have been able to pay. We were notified in October of a $1400 hundred dollar bill that our insurance was not going to cover, frantically we came up with the money, using all the savings we had in our Emergency Fund. We also had to come up with the money for a new AC unit that died on us over the summer needless to say we were broke. With Christmas approaching I have felt a lot of stress wondering how we were going to be able to afford gifts for our family and friends, when we had nothing in our savings. To our joy we were informed that most of the $1400 hundred dollars was going to be refunded to us from our insurance. Overjoyed I made a budget as to how we were going to spend this unexpected money. A new car seat for Sydney, a few bills, gifts for family and friends and a small trip to Salt Lake the weekend before Christmas to spend time with Seth's family, since they just had a new baby we also budgeted for a few nights in a hotel. As I added it all up I realized that we needed another two hundred dollars for our food for the rest of the month. I had no idea where this money was going to come from, worried, I tried to redo the budget, but we still came up short. Last night after Sydney had gone to bed we heard a knock on the door, we answered it to find two men from our Bishopric standing on our door step. We invited them in, has we shook hands with them they handed us an envelope from the ward. Inside the envelope was exactly two hundred dollars, I saw this money and burst into tears.

How was it that they came to us with the exact amount of money that we were lacking. A true Christmas miracle! I am so humbled at the ways our Heavenly Father chooses to bless us through his earthy angels. He truly knows each and every one of us, he knows our weaknesses, our trials and our worries. He knows that we must struggle in darkness and pain in order to feel joy as we experience the light if his love. Those small glimpses of his light that push away the darkness can be so overwhelmingly beautiful, and for a moment make all the trials worth the struggle and pain! I am so thankful for our wonderful ward and the giving people who donated money yet again to those that are in need. I am thankful for a Heavenly who truly knows me and what I am going through. Most of all I am thankful of the hope that Christmas miracles bring. A hope for a better time, a time with less struggles more giving and more joy.