A $79.91 Surprise!

It’s a mystery, indeed!  A surprise delivery on our door step!

A few days ago, one of the children noticed a vase sitting on our front porch.  It was filled with change – pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Attached to the neck of the vase was a card in an envelope. The envelope read, “To the precious servant children.” The card inside read,  "Change 4 Change 4 Jesus." The note was not signed.  There was no indication of who was responsible for this surprise.  How special and how fun!

Resting on top of the mound of money was a beautiful red ornament with the even more beautiful word “Jesus” written across it, and James 1:17 inscribed below.  On the back, the verse read, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the Heavenly lights … ”

Who would have left this?  Like a rag tag band of Sherlock Holmes “wanna-bes”, we are trying to figure it out – time of day it was dropped off, handwriting, choice of wording -- but time and time again, we are stumped.   All we can conclude is that it is likely someone who read my post  “Change 4 Change 4 Jesus” last week, and someone who  desired to creatively bless someone through our  children.

This weekend, we all sat around and counted the money in the same fashion of our tradition.  Sorting the money, counting it up by type and adding it in full -- an astounding $79.91.

We talked and prayed about who we should give it to and made our decision. We recently heard of  a family at our church who has a two year old grandson with feeding difficulties.  He needs a very expensive formula in order to survive.  We will give this money, along with the story and the ornament to these sweet people and pray that they are encouraged.

Isn’t God amazing?  Imagine this!  He provides for one family by the anonymous donation of someone’s change, through our children.  God is so interesting!  He meets our every need in the most unexpected ways – how fun it must be for God to see His people respond to His call and bless people along the way!

To whoever dropped the surprise on our door step -- thank you. You showed my children the value and joy of an anonymous gift.  God is using you to encourage them in being good stewards of whatever He gives, through whatever channels, and you are giving them the opportunity to love someone else. Thank you, thank you. A thousand times -- thank you.

(As for our $59 that we collected as a family, we decided to give it to the Freedom Food Pantry, a local food pantry my son recently visited on a field trip.  Since being there, his passion for helping people in this way is growing. He feels strongly that we share our gift with them, trusting that the Lord will use it as He sees fit.)