Often I’m asked how I do it.  Honestly friends, I’m no super woman.  Let’s be honest, we all have days that are completely overwhelming.  Personally I love, love, love my life.  But no doubt some days are just kinda’ hard.

And in the midst of sometimes feeling overwhelmed, suddenly the Lord shows up with His loving care in ways I never would have dreamed of, reminding me that He is always faithful, He understands our overwhelmed hearts and that we definitely have His blessing.

Like yesterday.

With Christmas drawing near I knew I needed to take the kids Christmas shopping.  But it sounded kinda’ overwhelming.  Birdie isn’t an enormous fan of shopping (I know, I know, we have got to work on that!).  And Ruby’s been having a few rough days lately.  And of course two wheelchairs make things a little tricky as well.

But it needed to be done because each year, usually on Thanksgiving, the kids secretly exchange names with any of their married sibs, sibs-in-love and nieces and nephews who would like to be included.

 

So with Christmas speeding toward us, I reasoned that Monday would probably be one of the least busy days (this close to Christmas) and with two wheelchairs and my big ol’ pile we needed that “empty mall feeling”!  Besides Emma had mentioned that she wished she could go to her favorite mall in Phoenix to do some shopping.  It’s not anywhere near our home, but why not take the kids and FaceTime with Emma in hopes of making her feel kinda’ like she was there too?

So we ventured off about 9 am – with the goal of finding presents for all!

We prayed and worshipped as we drove toward the mall.  We asked God for His favor on our day.  We prayed for sales and deals and beautiful surprises!  Little did we know what was ahead!!   I am still shaking my head.  He is just so faithful, we will never forget all He did in one day for us!

We found a parking spot easily near the door.  Everyone was full of anticipation!!

Although FaceTiming with Emma didn’t work well, she saw us for a speck (literally a speck) and then the calls kept failing.  *sigh* Well at least we tried.

 

The mall was relatively light in customers so it was easy going.

We wandered up and down.  The names are kept secret till Christmas morning so it requires the kids to be slick in purchasing their gifts! We managed to get a few people taken care of at the mall!

Vern tended to lag behind, so I was constantly turning around and asking him to get a move on.  I finally had him change the speed to faster.  Of course then he ran over Isaiah, Liberty, and Elijah’s feet and banged into one of the others.  So yeah, we went back to the “lagging” speed…much more our style, besides the sibs kinda’ like their toes.  So I was kinda’ a bobble head with looking all around to keep track of everyone.

All that to say that I had not noticed anyone looking at us, my head was moving in too many directions.  But suddenly an elderly woman, wearing dark sunglasses, appeared right in front of me.  I half-expected her to say that Vern had ran over her feet too!  Haha!  But without saying a word she reached her hand toward mine and gently placed a rolled up bill in my hand. My mouth dropped open.  She never said a word.  I thanked her profusely for her kindness.  She never spoke, didn’t even really smile….she just turned and slowly walked all the way down the mall.   I was completely dumbfounded.  Perhaps she was an angel!! (Not kidding!)  The kids and I were all grateful and right then and there we thanked the Lord for His goodness through this sweet, silent, sunglassed lady! Around lunch time we headed to the car and as we did I received a text.  It was from a Zoyo frozen yogurt shop.  We had been there about a year earlier.   The text read that they were voted #1 in Phoenix and to celebrate they were giving each customer up to 8oz FREE of their yogurt and toppings that very day!!  Can anyone spell Y-I-P-P-I-E  J-E-S-U-S?  I kept the text to myself!  

 

We had packed a lunch and went out to the car to eat our lunch (leftovers from Sunday’s lunch)….and after eating, I started the car and without telling them, we drove to the ZOYO shop.  The kids were thrilled!!  All ten of us piled out and in we went.  The people were soooo nice to  us and it was such a beautiful, completely unexpected, delicious blessing!!

After indulging in all the yummy goo, we headed toward a Target near our church.  It was our only other stop for the day.  We went in the store and Liberty took some who needed to go to one department, while I took four with me to another department.  We met up after awhile and all walked together through the store.   I completely am enthralled with the Christmas department!!

In the toy department Birdie meets George:

At the back of the store another elderly lady commented on my sweet pile.  She was very kind and although it was very brief it made us all smile.  She clearly thought the kids were precious!

Once at the front near the registers, we separated again so no one would see what anyone had bought, except those who already knew.  After I was finished paying, Liberty hurried to me, “Mom! Remember the lady at the back of the store who spoke to us?  Her daughter that was with her came searching for me.  She said her mom wanted us to have this.  She said she wants us to do something we hadn’t planned on doing.  Like eating supper out or something.”  Liberty pressed a pile of bills into my hand!

Wow. Just wow!  Another completely unexpected love gift from the Lord!!

And if all that wasn’t crazy enough – as we were loading the wheelchairs in the car, another lady stopped and handed Liberty (who was closest to her) a tin of cookies and said, “I saw your family and want you to have this.  Have a very Merry Christmas!”

She drove off and we were left giggling!!  Wow Lord. Just wow!

Once home, I was exhausted – in a good way.  It had been an amazingly beautiful day.  We had been gone 8 hours!  We used the generous gift from the second lady and ordered pizza from our favorite local place, which Liberty ran and picked up.

Many completely unexpected blessings – each reminding me of just how much God loves us and loves to shower us with sweet surprises!!  He had answered our prayers, everyone found what they needed and in the process we were surprised by the Lord so many times – we praise His name!!

From His abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another.

John 1:16