Dec 17, 2012

An Early Christmas Present

Today was not just a normal day.

It was a day to remember.

But to start the story of today, I need to start with yesterday. Yesterday the kids were getting ready for church and their money was still sitting on the table from "pay-day". We have a little chore chart for the kids with some simple chores on it that they can earn literally "cents" for what they do. For a whole week's worth of work they don't normally even earn .50 cents.

I was feeling all kinds of emotions this Sunday. My kids gathered up $15.00 and dropped it in the pot."No, don't do that much!" "What about Christmas and buying gifts for your siblings?" "this is all your money! Maybe you should give only 10%."I wanted to say.
"Is this wise?" I thought logically.
"God help me not to hinder them." I prayed.
"God, please show your blessings to them." I asked.

I didn't say anything. I was proud of their generosity to God. Nothing was really said all day about it and I purposely didn't bring it up.

That night when we went to bed Corban prayed what he's been praying for two weeks now: "God, can you please give us a tree for Christmas? Amen"
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So Monday rolled around. As I picked up the kids from school, I decided to just take a look in a local store. I had some time to waste because Shawn came home sick from school today. So the longer I could keep the kids out of the house, the better it would be for Shawn (aren't I such a good wife?) :)

Then the kids saw an artificial tree! There were three options, but only one tree looked good enough to buy. LOL Then I looked at the price tag, took a deep breath, and walked away as I explained to the kids that it was way too much money!!! We will keep looking.
$75.00
Uh uh, no way! "Please mom? We'll help pay for it." They said. 

This sentence made me think. How would I respond? They had nothing! They just gave it all to God yesterday! I did a loop in the store as the kids followed me like little ducks, and thought. After thinking about what they had said, I grabbed the tree and walked up to the counter. The lady told me to scratch this coupon and see. I told her I didn't want to buy it. She said it was free. "Just see" she said again. So I reached my hand in this "coupon box" that had hundreds of scratch coupons. And as I scratched the circle it read...
-90%!
I realized what had just happened when she got excited for me and only charged me $8.00. 

But the best part of the story was when Corban told me that God answered his prayer and when Nathan and Zack told me that God paid for the tree because they gave God all their money yesterday. And every year this tree will remind us of God's blessing by answering the kids prayers and giving back more than they gave. 

And every year we will talk about how He gave us so much more... which is His only Son!

THANK YOU JESUS!