The Gift

 

Merry Day After Christmas! Are you rested? Are you happy with your gifts?

If you have the gifts of Jesus, love, & health, you are blessed. I remind you all of this because I needed a HUGE reminder of this last weekend. I want to share this story with you not because I am proud of my attitude but because I was reminded that even though we have given our hearts to Jesus, we are human and satan will try to steal our souls every chance he gets. It is so easy to give in to his temptations and walk in the spirit of selfishness and get the "why should I" attitude.

Last Saturday just as we were about to go into Wal-mart to grocery shop, the kids dad called them to ask them if they had gotten me a present. They both told him yes because they have both apparently made me things. My first thought was "Oh crud! I forgot to get him something from you guys!" Seriously I did not forget on purpose. I really didn't. This has just been a really hard year, as for many, and he is not one of my priorities. Especially since he has been the cause of my hardships this year.

So I told the kids we needed to go in and get him something as we were driving to meet him halfway between our towns to pick up the kids presents from him and his family the next day. As soon as I said this, I felt an anger rush over me and I got the thought, "Wait a minute, why should I get him anything? He owes me so much money!" THEN I got mad at the kids for telling him they had got me something when I knew they had not. Then he would not get me anything from the kids. Whoah! Where had that little demon come from? He was there and he was mad! 

Thank God Jesus was there too! I heard him tell me how blessed I was that the kids thought of me when they made their gifts and not of him. Is that not what Christmas is about? The thoughts of love? Was I not getting the best deal out of it all? I needed to be made to feel smaller than Santa's elves at that moment. I needed God's correction.

Another blessing of the moment that I did not get to see until Monday, was the fact that I did not get to check my bank account on Friday and he did not pay me the other half of his child support the day before. Had I known that, the demon may have won and I probably would not have bought him a gift from the kids. And the next day when we met him I may have been nasty to him. However I am happy to report we did get him something and it was a cordial meeting. I was even able to give him a hug and tell him Merry Christmas! Talk about a Christmas miracle!

My gift this Christmas was the awareness that I still have some issues I need to work on, but also the realization of how blessed I am. I pray that you all received wonderful gifts as well. Stop and look around especially if you are not feeling it. I bet you have more gifts than you thought. Have a wonderful last week of 2008 and I will "see" you all next year!

Comments

[Jill]

Great story.
Made me see my own anger toward my daughter's father.
God bless you for being so frank.
We can only have a vulnerable love toward people who have hurt us through the power of God and his tremendous grace.
Praise Him!

[Robin]

Hello, Just found this part of TRW, and wanted to say I'm a single mom too. I invite you to stop by my single mom blog and say Hi. I am trying to hone in on my gift of wrtitting this New Year, so I plan on spending some time over here and CWTR. God Bless, and I look forward to meeting you all and building some friendships.