Today has just been a really good day. I had a busy morning at work; a good walk with my sister at noon; a quiet afternoon alone at the house; a HUGE laugh with Tyler (he was teaching me how to race cars on the Xbox – I have no skills); and a nice supper with Tyler, Daisy, Maddie, and David.
%5B1%5D.jpg "111910 (1)")
Now I’m sitting in the quiet of my living room (fixing to watch Garth Brooks on Leno) after having read Maddie a bedtime story before she quietly laid down for the night. (Tyler and Daisy are at the movies – they are Harry Potter fanatics.)
Before putting Maddie down, she and I packed a couple more Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. She has given even more meaning to what they’ve meant to me over the years as we’ve let this be a gift from her to “little boys and little girls who don’t have any toys or much food”. She has literally helped me pick each item and pack each box and she has never once asked for any of the stuff for herself.
As I watch her packing them, I can’t help but think about how much I have come to love her and how she has no idea what it would be like to be without. Without a warm bed. Without food. Without her cute little clothes. Without more hugs and kisses than she even knows what to do with. She is sure that she will be taken care of. She knows that wherever she is, she is surrounded by love and all the things she needs in life. I’m grieved for the little children who don’t have what she has and it has helped me to think about the holidays in a much more meaningful way.
I have MUCH to be thankful for.
8 comments:
Amen! Wouldn't you just love to help pass those OCC boxes out in a foreign land! I'd love to see those faces that receive them! Our mission classes helped our WMU put together OCC boxes on Monday night and we had 87 total! In the past we've had the children carry them to the altar during our morning worship service so we could all pray over them.
Miss Maddie is a super cutie and I can see how you all get attached quickly with that precious face!
We are all so blessed, it's hard to imagine being without! I pray that we will all become more aware of, and thankful for, all of our blessings and 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow'!!
I never fail to feel so blessed as when I pack my shoeboxes and to think of how much "stuff" we all have as Americans and how we take so much of it for granted.
Maddie is such a sweetie!
glad you had a good day. when i drive to daycare in the mornings, i pray over the boys and then i usually pick one person and say a prayer for them. today i picked you. :)
i love praying for people who have no idea :)
maddie is a cutie! and yes, we are all definitely blessed!!
What a neat way to start the holiday season!
We are so blessed beyond measure! How precious that Maddie did that. What a sweet girl. Mary-Kate is like that too. She gets to thinking about boys and girls without toys. Today she wanted to clean her room. She went from 2 toy boxes to 1. We made a trip to the Goodwill and she was smiling the whole time. (One of the toy boxes a friend of mine dropped of full of toys her daughter didn't play with anymore. Lots of our things are hand me downs. MK likes that better than new stuff, so she says.) I hope she stays that way.
well this post made me teary! Maddie is such a blessing and the fact that she's so giving and kind at such a young age is amazing to me =) that reminds me i should probably start writing that letter lol
We are so blessed and often don't have a clue. I'm thankful for so much every day...my faith, my family, my friends. God has been so good to me. I'm wishing you a joy filled Thanksgiving. blessings, marlene
Post a Comment