Gifts

My heart is full today as I reflect on the blessings I've been showered with. It has been a tough week filled with wonderful things that also carried a lot of stress in it. I've also filled my journal so I'm feeling at a loss as to where to write.

The night of the 12th we had a large package drop-off full of Christmas presents for our family and a note that it came from the Happy Elves. On the back was a calendar with dates circled leading up to Christmas and the note 12 days of Christmas. I wondered if that meant that someone was going to treat us to the 12 days of Christmas = gifts of some sort every day. I wasn't going to count on it, or expect it, but sure enough every day but Saturday night we've had SOMETHING. We have been really blessed. We've received a lot of food and presents for the boys and some money for me to use at Home Depot and then today at HEB. One night the Blacks left something and that was the night no anonymous gifts were left, so I wondered if there was some coordinating going on. Jared and Aaron wondered and wondered who could be leaving stuff for us. They wanted to wait up and catch the deliverers, but I reminded them that we don't want to get caught when doing our heart attacks so they wouldn't either. Well, today the cat was let out of the bag a bit. One of the elves asked me if I'd be home and apologized that she missed her day. In that moment I knew that indeed there was some coordination going on and I suspect SW is behind it, but I will never ask (even though I really want to know). I have my suspicions about who filled our porch with food. My biggest question really is how they managed to pull this off without me finding out? And when did they decide to do this?

I had Jared make a list of all the people we've heart attacked and crossed off the ones who I knew for sure would not participate in a reciprocation. Interestingly enough, the remainder is 12. Talk about karma. I started the heart attacks because every day when I come home I wonder and wish that there was something waiting for me on the porch and it's always a disappointment to return to nothing. I decided to do something about it for other people not expecting anything in return and yet here we are months later receiving something on our porch every day. The Lord loves me and knows my heart.

Today after church Jared was sorting through the presents under the tree and asked what the big bucket of laundry soap was. When I told him, he thought that was a silly present and wondered who would want laundry soap. I told him I would. We're almost out and we needed it. Jared is becoming more and more aware of our lack and is labeling us poor. He again brought it up as we discussed the laundry soap, but I corrected him and told him we are not poor. We are very blessed and our needs are met which means we are rich. I tried to stress to him that the Lord is taking care of us and to be grateful for those blessings. He had an ah-ha moment that I hope will stick with him.

The capstone of my week was today's demands between ward council, music practice, teaching sharing time, and having stuff ready for teachers for the new year. It was really quite overwhelming, but I did the best I could and the Lord made up the rest. Sharing time was amazing. The Spirit was so strong and both groups were captivated and participated. I especially enjoyed SR primary because we had some good discussion and geniune learning going on. Those are the moments that I treasure.

We did our Christmas presentation in Sacrament mtg which meant a lot of demands for my piano playing. I agreed to do all the hymns because it isn't really that big of a deal, but as I sat at the piano beforehand wondering how I was going to manage ALL that music I wished I'd declined and let Sis. Andrew take care of the hymns but it turned out just fine. My biggest worry was the music for O Holy Night. I practiced for awhile after playing with Kelly yesterday but today I was not in the zone and was messing up quite a bit when we ran through it. I ran out of time for going over it again though and had to just accept that it was what it was and prayed for help. It was not perfect, but it was pretty darn close. For the first time that I can remember, when the Spirit and music moved me I didn't get so shaky and nervous that I began messing up. I maintained it and that was such a great feeling. It was a privilege to be apart of something so wonderful. I love Christmas programs because the music is always amazing and inspiring. I am so grateful for the talent and gift of playing the piano.