Merry Christmas To Someone In Need – #LovesVoice

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you will know I never intended to have a Facebook account. By chance, someone else signed me up with MY email address. When I went to delete the account, I was curious and found some connections with some very old high school friends. So I kept it.

I’ve always thought that I never made enough of an impression on anyone, and you know how relationships go with time and distance. All I have are “remembrances” rather than friends on Facebook.

Well, at the beginning of December, I received a Facebook message from one of those long ago friends, a “friend” I was always afraid of and thought she hated me. She reached out to me and a couple of others asking us to pray for a Christmas miracle. She’d been having a rough year, financially and with her youngest girl medically. I sat there reading that email, praying and crying. It touched my heart on so many different levels. Maybe I was wrong in thinking I never made an impression. I don’t know.

TheHubs remembers one year not being able to have a Christmas and having the Salvation Army show up on his doorstep with presents. That is what sticks with him. I never had to go with out. I was lucky. But over the years, I’ve (we’ve) given so much to people only to wonder if it’s ever been appreciated. From such a young age, I’ve always felt taken advantage of. TheHubs too. I even had a dream about this being nothing but a big “hoax” and it made me very anxious, especially after the other “premonitory dream” I had last week.

But I have to focus on the positive, see that not everyone is like that, and that what we are doing is the right thing to do. When all is said and done, it’s the action of giving that matters.

But to give to someone we know (despite the time and distance that separates the actual knowing part) who desperately needs a Christmas for their children, well, we never had the opportunity. No child should wake up on Christmas morning without something under the tree. I just wish I were rich so I could do that for everyone! But for now, we do it one at a time, when we can, and sometimes when it strains us. No matter how much we can’t afford it, we look around and realize we have so much, when others need.

I wanted so much to help her, but I didn’t know how. All the girls asked for were a couple of dolls, bikes, and a Kindle Fire to share. Being a writer, and an avid reader, I wanted to get the Kindle Fire. But, well, I didn’t think finances could allow me.

But something happened during my Christmas shopping. I managed to secure a Nook for free. It wasn’t a Kindle Fire. But it was an eReader. I brought it up to my family what I wanted to do with the Nook. Seeing as we already had 3 older eReaders already, they went for it, and more.  We packaged up the Nook, a cover and a light along with a gift card to B&N for books, and another one for Toys R Us. It won’t give them everything they asked for. But they WILL have a Christmas this year.

I just realized I spent money on books, but not for me. At least someone will be reading. I still have a couple of back logged books I still need to read, so I’m not too worried about it. I know what I did was a good thing and it makes me happy to help others, even when we have other obligations for our finances.

I remember a time where we had about $100 until my next payday. We had to fill the gas tank so we stopped at the gas station. Now, I am sure you all have been approached by someone asking for a few bucks, or they’ve said they’ve been on vacation and they need a few dollars to fill up their tank because they ran out of money (or maybe that’s just because I live in a tourist state). Well, we knew this wasn’t a scam like the previous ones. There was a couple sitting in their car with their gas cap off and doors open. The lady sitting in the passenger seat was VERY pregnant. The man was just looking dejected, worried, and desperate. He asked us if he could have a couple of dollars to get a few gallons of gas so he could get his wife to her OB appointment. We swiped our debit card and told him to fill it up. He looked like he wanted to cry. His wife did. He kept asking us what our address was so he could pay us back. We said, there’s no paying back. What you do is when you find someone in desperate need like you were, we don’t care how much money you have left in your account, you do the same as we did. Pay it forward. And he promised.

We continue to keep doing good, and believing others will “pay it forward” too. Random acts of kindness. Every bit, no matter how small, shows love. And love trumps all evil. It’s how we live with this world. My friend Andrew wrote about this in the wake of the Sandy Hook travesty. He said,

THERE IS MORE LOVE IN THE WORLD THAN HATE. HATE JUST HAS A LOUDER VOICE.

I tried to get this out to people. Asking for people to retweet the message that we need to make love’s voice louder. It won’t end hatred, but it can make love’s voice louder, so that when hatred roars, love sings above it.

So, I ask you to do the same. Get the word out. Pay it forward. Do your own random act of kindness. And let love sing louder than evil!