Starting off this Christmas Season I didn't know what to expect. Life has been hard recently. Every day brings new trials, ways that affect my self-esteem, and make me feel worthless. I get so tired everyday and I often want to give up and wonder why I do everything that I do.
Wiggy Wash was having their annual Christmas party, which of course the owners made certain that I knew about the party and I would be attending. Not wanting to go because I was so overwhelmed with everything with what had happened that day, I decided to go because I had made a commitment.
The party was fun, and at the end of the party they gave each employee a "Christmas Bonus", since I've been there for so long I got a little more than others. Receiving my $100 visa card, my mind started going off in every direction. I couldn't think of how I would spend this, maybe on some gas, maybe on the few Christmas dates that me and my friends had planned, put it in the savings. Everything I thought of didn't seem to sit well in my mind. While watching the Christmas Devotional with my family a sudden thought popped into my mind, "Someone needs this money more than you Rachel". I couldn't stop thinking about how much good I could do for someone.
I started to think of people I went to school with, people who seemed less fortunate and wouldn't receive the best Christmas this year, there were many kids at my school, but a certain name kept lingering, Josh.
Josh is an enormous "teddy bear" that I work with. He is about a foot taller than me, and twice the size. When he first came into work, I was a little frightened by his size and him being almost twice my age. Slowly I started to get to know who he truly was. Every time Josh walked into Wiggy Wash, I started to smile. He brought laughter, joy, excitement and love into the shop, especially for me, he made me feel important. He truly was the "big teddy bear" of the wash. After some time he started to change. He shared with me how for Thanksgiving dinner he would have to go buy it from Wal-Mart because his mom was too poor to buy it. He shared how his wife was sent to jail, pregnant, and he didn't know if she would be home for Christmas. He was so worried about his two children, and would never stop expressing how they are his world.
This thought of providing a Christmas for Josh seemed impossible. I hardly knew anything about this man, not mentioning his two children, it seemed almost impossible at the time. The thought just wouldn't leave my brain though, it kept coming up in over and over. So, I prayed to my Heavenly Father, I asked him if I was suppose to provide a Christmas for Josh's family, then provide me with the information needed to buy the presents.
The following day, while working on a car, I invited Josh to come and help me, providing an opportunity for Heavenly Father to answer my prayers. We started having the usual conversation, but the usual conversation quickly turned into a Christmas Miracle. He started to express how he didn't know how he was going to be able to pull off Christmas this year, he expressed what he wanted to give his children, what they liked and disliked, how old they were, their hobbies, and even showed me pictures and videos of them.
It was hard to hold back the tears after this experience, I knew where I needed to spend my Christmas Bonus. So the process began. That night while doing homework with Bryce, I expressed what I was doing and asked him what were some good X-Box 360 games because the 6 year old boy loved to game. He offered to donate some of his old games, and while putting the games into his backpack later that night, his parents asked what he was doing. He expressed what my plans were, and his parents willingly donated $50 dollars. They were looking for a cause to donate some Christmas money that would normally have been spent on sibling gifts, and they knew where they needed to donate.
With $150 in my hands after a day, I was ecstatic. After telling my parents my plans, they also wanted to donate $150, Brooke Jones family heard and donated $50, and Jared Kotter's family donated $10. After the course of 3 days, I had around $400 donated to Josh's Christmas.
That Friday night, my siblings and a few friends headed out to buy the presents. Things seemed to go in every wrong direction. Planning to start at 5pm, we finally arrived at the store by 7pm. We had so much success afterword's though. Buying a play station for the boy, two dolls for the little girl, blankets, movies, coloring pages, sing along toys, family games, 3 shirts for Josh, wrapping paper, candy. We ended up buying roughly 12 presents for each kid, and about 6 for Josh.
After buying the presents we headed to my house where Brooke, Hailee and I wrapped each present, while putting a small piece of tape on the bottom of each present specifying if it was a boy or a girl present (seeing that I failed to learn the kids name, ooopps), with a tag on each present so Josh could write who it was too and who it was from.
After the minimum of 8 hours that night of constant work, we finally finished. Going home I typed up a letter explaining how "Santa" came and brought some Christmas presents for his children, in the letter it explained how the process worked and listed each present that was bought.
Two days later my boss heard what I was doing, and ended up buying Christmas PJ's for the kids, which was neat because we were unable to buy PJ's because we had to buy wrapping paper.
While attempting to deliver the presents anonymously into his truck, he ended up walking out to take his dog out of his truck, which he was selling that day because he couldn't afford to keeping providing for it. After waiting for 20 minutes in my car, he finally walked into the shop where he could not see me. Luckily his car was unlocked, quickly put all the presents into his truck, which filled up the entire truck, put the letter on his seat, shut the door and drove away.
Later that day I went in to get my tips for the day before, and the shopped seemed overly happy. Talking to a friend, he confronted me asking "Rachel, have you been playing secret Santa today, because somebody filled Josh's entire truck up with presents and we just want to find someone to thank because it truly meant a lot to him." Luckily, with my "Awesome" lying skills I was able to ease my way out of the question and sneak out without anyone knowing it was me.
A few hours later I get a call from my boss saying, "I went into the wash today, and Nate (my boss) asked me if I was the one to give Josh all the presents, I said I did not and had to recollection of what he was talking about, he asked me once a again and then asked if Rachel was the one to do it, again I denied. He threatened to go look at the cameras for find who did it. After threating him with his life if he did that, I asked why do you want to know so badly? He answered saying "Josh left the shop for a few min and came back crying. Asking why he was crying, he went on to tell me how his truck was filled with presents and he didn't know who did it, he couldn't stop saying thank you." After hearing this story, I knew I had done the right thing, and I knew that my prayers were answered.
I was amazed by the Lords hand in this Christmas project. Every where I looked he was providing a way for me to do this for Josh. I can't express how grateful I am to be the Lords hand piece and bless one of his children. I will never forget about this Christmas Season, and have been completely changed from this experience.
Yeah, life gets rough, sometimes you feel like you can go no further. But my Heavenly Father cares enough about me to show me how truly blessed I am when I start to feel this way. He is constantly watching out for me and I know I'm always on his radar. I can't thank him enough for this Christmas Miracle he has provided for me this season. Merry Christmas!! :)
Wiggy Wash was having their annual Christmas party, which of course the owners made certain that I knew about the party and I would be attending. Not wanting to go because I was so overwhelmed with everything with what had happened that day, I decided to go because I had made a commitment.
The party was fun, and at the end of the party they gave each employee a "Christmas Bonus", since I've been there for so long I got a little more than others. Receiving my $100 visa card, my mind started going off in every direction. I couldn't think of how I would spend this, maybe on some gas, maybe on the few Christmas dates that me and my friends had planned, put it in the savings. Everything I thought of didn't seem to sit well in my mind. While watching the Christmas Devotional with my family a sudden thought popped into my mind, "Someone needs this money more than you Rachel". I couldn't stop thinking about how much good I could do for someone.
I started to think of people I went to school with, people who seemed less fortunate and wouldn't receive the best Christmas this year, there were many kids at my school, but a certain name kept lingering, Josh.
Josh is an enormous "teddy bear" that I work with. He is about a foot taller than me, and twice the size. When he first came into work, I was a little frightened by his size and him being almost twice my age. Slowly I started to get to know who he truly was. Every time Josh walked into Wiggy Wash, I started to smile. He brought laughter, joy, excitement and love into the shop, especially for me, he made me feel important. He truly was the "big teddy bear" of the wash. After some time he started to change. He shared with me how for Thanksgiving dinner he would have to go buy it from Wal-Mart because his mom was too poor to buy it. He shared how his wife was sent to jail, pregnant, and he didn't know if she would be home for Christmas. He was so worried about his two children, and would never stop expressing how they are his world.
This thought of providing a Christmas for Josh seemed impossible. I hardly knew anything about this man, not mentioning his two children, it seemed almost impossible at the time. The thought just wouldn't leave my brain though, it kept coming up in over and over. So, I prayed to my Heavenly Father, I asked him if I was suppose to provide a Christmas for Josh's family, then provide me with the information needed to buy the presents.
The following day, while working on a car, I invited Josh to come and help me, providing an opportunity for Heavenly Father to answer my prayers. We started having the usual conversation, but the usual conversation quickly turned into a Christmas Miracle. He started to express how he didn't know how he was going to be able to pull off Christmas this year, he expressed what he wanted to give his children, what they liked and disliked, how old they were, their hobbies, and even showed me pictures and videos of them.
It was hard to hold back the tears after this experience, I knew where I needed to spend my Christmas Bonus. So the process began. That night while doing homework with Bryce, I expressed what I was doing and asked him what were some good X-Box 360 games because the 6 year old boy loved to game. He offered to donate some of his old games, and while putting the games into his backpack later that night, his parents asked what he was doing. He expressed what my plans were, and his parents willingly donated $50 dollars. They were looking for a cause to donate some Christmas money that would normally have been spent on sibling gifts, and they knew where they needed to donate.
With $150 in my hands after a day, I was ecstatic. After telling my parents my plans, they also wanted to donate $150, Brooke Jones family heard and donated $50, and Jared Kotter's family donated $10. After the course of 3 days, I had around $400 donated to Josh's Christmas.
That Friday night, my siblings and a few friends headed out to buy the presents. Things seemed to go in every wrong direction. Planning to start at 5pm, we finally arrived at the store by 7pm. We had so much success afterword's though. Buying a play station for the boy, two dolls for the little girl, blankets, movies, coloring pages, sing along toys, family games, 3 shirts for Josh, wrapping paper, candy. We ended up buying roughly 12 presents for each kid, and about 6 for Josh.
After buying the presents we headed to my house where Brooke, Hailee and I wrapped each present, while putting a small piece of tape on the bottom of each present specifying if it was a boy or a girl present (seeing that I failed to learn the kids name, ooopps), with a tag on each present so Josh could write who it was too and who it was from.
After the minimum of 8 hours that night of constant work, we finally finished. Going home I typed up a letter explaining how "Santa" came and brought some Christmas presents for his children, in the letter it explained how the process worked and listed each present that was bought.
Two days later my boss heard what I was doing, and ended up buying Christmas PJ's for the kids, which was neat because we were unable to buy PJ's because we had to buy wrapping paper.
While attempting to deliver the presents anonymously into his truck, he ended up walking out to take his dog out of his truck, which he was selling that day because he couldn't afford to keeping providing for it. After waiting for 20 minutes in my car, he finally walked into the shop where he could not see me. Luckily his car was unlocked, quickly put all the presents into his truck, which filled up the entire truck, put the letter on his seat, shut the door and drove away.
Later that day I went in to get my tips for the day before, and the shopped seemed overly happy. Talking to a friend, he confronted me asking "Rachel, have you been playing secret Santa today, because somebody filled Josh's entire truck up with presents and we just want to find someone to thank because it truly meant a lot to him." Luckily, with my "Awesome" lying skills I was able to ease my way out of the question and sneak out without anyone knowing it was me.
A few hours later I get a call from my boss saying, "I went into the wash today, and Nate (my boss) asked me if I was the one to give Josh all the presents, I said I did not and had to recollection of what he was talking about, he asked me once a again and then asked if Rachel was the one to do it, again I denied. He threatened to go look at the cameras for find who did it. After threating him with his life if he did that, I asked why do you want to know so badly? He answered saying "Josh left the shop for a few min and came back crying. Asking why he was crying, he went on to tell me how his truck was filled with presents and he didn't know who did it, he couldn't stop saying thank you." After hearing this story, I knew I had done the right thing, and I knew that my prayers were answered.
I was amazed by the Lords hand in this Christmas project. Every where I looked he was providing a way for me to do this for Josh. I can't express how grateful I am to be the Lords hand piece and bless one of his children. I will never forget about this Christmas Season, and have been completely changed from this experience.
Yeah, life gets rough, sometimes you feel like you can go no further. But my Heavenly Father cares enough about me to show me how truly blessed I am when I start to feel this way. He is constantly watching out for me and I know I'm always on his radar. I can't thank him enough for this Christmas Miracle he has provided for me this season. Merry Christmas!! :)
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