On the second day of Christmas...

My true love gave to me:

true gratitude

I have an acquaintance in my aerobics class that I have known for a few years now. We are about the same age, and the same place in life, literally! She has shared details of her life with me and me with her and over the last few months I have just felt God lay her name on my heart multiple times. A few weeks ago I was working the Christmas Stroll for my church and remembered seeing her last year there and wondered if I would see her again and I literally looked up and she was in front of me. That was a little creepy, but most of the time I find myself praying for her alot. In the last few months I have been overwhelmed by the blessings God is showering down on me monetarily. I have been praying I would be a good steward of what I have been given. I knew I wanted to help someone out this Christmas and actually had a family in mind for a few weeks, but then one night while I was praying I knew who I was suppose to give to and it was not the family I had in mind.

I was excited God again laid her name on my heart and I jumped up, wrote a card, included the money and sealed it. I have been walking around with the card for a week now hoping I would see her in class and tonight she came. She usually leaves after the cardio section so I just laid it with her belongings as everyone put away their step benches expecting her to grab her things and go. To my surprise, she opened it. She began crying and came back up to me and first said she couldn't accept it. I explained God has provided for me and now for you too and the look in her eyes was incredible! Then, she touched my shoulder, looked in my eyes so intently and said "Thank you."

I don't know that I can say I have ever done something to warrant such a genuine response of true gratitude. I was just obeying God and giving to who He told me to give to with the money He gave me to give her. To look at it from the perspective of obedience, I shouldn't have been rewarded, I was just carrying out a task, but God rewarded me still. It was almost as if God had said Thank you. Thank you for obeying, thank you for providing for another, thank you for loving her. I would have loved to have spent that money on the boys but then I would have missed the blessing...makes me wonder how many blessings I have missed through my disobiedience in the past? Not a thought I want to dwell on, but I will take it to heart that obeying God always has it's rewards.