Christmas story

taken from lincoln brewster newsletter......

It's been awhile since I've had time to send you one of my stories, but I feel like it's time! So I want to share a story with you that happened to me around last Christmas. A woman I know was struggling in her life, her marriage was failing, money was tight, and things were looking pretty bleak. It wasn't the picture perfect Christmas that she dreamed of. She prayed for answers, but it felt like she wasn't being heard.

And as it often goes, she was so upset that while she was backing up her car with her thoughts so present in her problems, she backed into a pole and knocked the bumper off of her car. She was at the breaking point! She didn't even have the money to live on right now, much less fix her car! She felt lost and defeated, but kept praying for answers.

She decided to call a body shop to at least see how much it might be to fix her car, and wept when they told her that it would be around $800. It might as well have been $8000! Something told her to get a second opinion, and she happened to be driving by another shop so she pulled in. She asked the man at the shop to look at her car, and he agreed. As they talked, her story unfolded, and with tears in her eyes, she told him her plight. He looked at her and said, "Let me see what I can do". As she waited inside, there was a flurry of activity around her car. The man came back in and told her that everything was okay, and when they walked out, the body shop crew had miraculously straighted out the bumper and managed to bolt it back on her car. She immediately felt axiety and asked how much she owed them. He smiled and told her Merry Christmas.

So how this comes back to me, I get a phone call while I'm trying to finish up my Christmas shopping in a very loud mall, and all I can here is a woman sobbing! I can't hear her very well, and I'm imagining something horrible has happened! I finally get to a place where I can here her talk, and through the sobs she says, "God answered my prayers! He sent me these wonderful Christmas angels! They fixed my car!" It made me cry to hear her.

A few days later she stopped back by and took them cookies that she baked and wrote them a poem to thank them. Since that day, she's made many trips back to the shop to say hi, and they have remained friends to this day.

I've always known that the best gifts aren't wrapped! So if you're having a hard time this year, remember that you are a gift, and you have two hands and two feet and a beautiful mind to give and that you are filled with gifts to give that don't cost a thing! You can be a Christmas angel!