Fire, Jimmy Stewart, Great Friends!!!

About six months ago Pete and I lost everything in a storage fire. Kind of a random hardship. We were all just fine, never in a moments danger. We just lost all our material possessions, with the exception of summer clothes and homeschooling books. The whole situation has been a blur. We just picked up and went on with the business, and craziness, of raising these future saints. When people ask how we are doing with the loss from the fire we always remark on the difficulty with loosing pictures and ALL of our Christmas things. Up until recently I had never really felt the pain of starting from scratch.

Then about 3 weeks ago on the first Sunday of Advent the pain settled in and made a home in my heart. We had our first Advent dinner with no Advent wreath. I had not replaced ANY Christmas items and now all of us were feeling the emptiness the fire had left. Then one afternoon, after quietly feeling sorry for myself, my friend comes by and drops off a beautiful Advent wreath that her son had made in his CCD class. I was truly amazed. This gesture touched my heart and made me so grateful that God cared if I had an Advent wreath. He wanted me to have one as much as I wanted one. I know I could have just gone out and replaced the Advent wreath myself, but my old one was given to me by my great friend Kathy in Alaska and I knew I could never replace THAT one. Knowing that, God sent me another one through a new great friend and her family!

And then last night I had my own "It's A Wonderful Life" moment.

Pete and I attended what has become an annual ornament swap for us. When we moved to Mobile 2 years ago we met an amazing group of Catholic families and they invited us to share in this yearly tradition with them. After a lively game of ornament swapping the room grew quiet. The host looked at Pete and I and said, " We know you guys lost all your ornaments in the fire. We all wanted to help replace some of them for you. We all brought an extra ornament for you guys to take home and put on your tree."

....my eyes swell and my heart is in my throat. How do you show people just how deeply they have touched your heart? I was so filled with appreciation and humbleness.

I feel so blessed to have such good people in my life. I want to be a better person just so I can become worthy of the thoughtfulness of these great families.

And just because I have to say this..my friends have really GREAT taste in ornaments!!

And speaking of ornaments I am going to announce the winner of the Give-a-Way tomorrow.  I am sorry about the "not keeping the deadline".  I have been busy licking my wounds!!