The Grinch was Right

The holiday season is always an exciting time and one that I look forward to, but financially it's always the toughest time of year for our little family. And unexpected things always happen during these months that put that much bigger of a strain on our family's meager earnings. I think I can actually count my blessings in the morning sickness department because that has kept me in bed and out of the stores.

 

I was reading this talk by a modern day apostle, Elder David Bednar,  about the unseen blessings of paying tithing and how the opened windows of heaven do not always equate a financial kickback. It comes in numerous ways. For our family this month, it came in the form of a winter storm that prevented my husband from an AF assignment, which we didn't really have the gas money to spend on an extra 600 mile round trip. It came in the form of simple sniffles instead of hacking coughs that kept us out of the doctors offices. (We haven't been since the summer! That's unheard of for us and our little sickie.) It came in the form of kind friends willing to take my kids to and from school, and a sweet companion who loaned us a van so if I needed to get out and buy some milk, I had the way to get there. (We currently have one car.) All of these blessings add up to tender mercies and generosity from our Father in Heaven, who knows our needs even before we ask.

 

Today I have been feeling a little overwhelmed as I count up the days until Christmas and wonder how we will make it all work, especially with all the days off due to holidays. I sat down and wanted to cry and feel doubtful, but instead I pulled out an advent calendar of sorts to do some reading with my lunch. The talk highlighted today was this one, by my favorite Jeffrey R. Holland, back in 1976 before he became an apostle. As always, he said just what I needed to hear. It was a message I knew in my heart, and one that I am very familiar with, but today my faith was strengthened and reignited by what I read.

 

Take some time to read it. The Grinch was right. Christmas doesn't come from a store. Christmas does mean something more. And my hope remains firm in the promise of what it really represents. That the tiny Baby born in a dirty stable, was willing to descend below all things so that He would know how to succor, or run to and give aid to, His people.

 

That's what Christmas is about, even if Amazon, Target, and Wal-Mart would like you to think otherwise.