Story of the Day
"Heaven-Sent"
I
went through a time in which I felt everyone was taking advantage of me, and I
wasn't the least bit happy about it. It seemed that all the people I had
decided to show kindness to were overstepping their boundaries. I wrestled
with the idea that if I was doing good just because God said we should, but if
my heart wasn't cheerful about doing it, was I really doing God a favor?
Wasn't my bad attitude canceling out the good?
I had spent many
hours and dollars on some disadvantaged kids in our neighborhood, and it was
getting to the point where things were being expected of me by their grandma,
with whom they lived. I was feeling resentful of her and the fact that the
kids didn't seem to be a priority in her life. I got a call from her one
day as Christmas was approaching and she started telling me about some girl she
knew who wasn't going to have much of a Christmas, and could I buy her
something.
I stewed on that
request. I couldn't get over the nerve of her calling and asking me to do
something for someone I didn't even know. Wasn't I doing enough already
for her kids? Now I have to take on someone else's? It's not as
if we had a lot of money.
As I was shopping a
few days later, I saw a box with two dolls in it, one dark-haired and one
light-haired. I thought about that little girl. Because it seemed
like a bargain at fifteen dollars, I bought it, but I wasn't happy about it.
I tossed it in my cart with some begrudging mutter and took it home and wrapped
it up. Right before Christmas, I gave it to the grandma, and I never heard
a word about it after that. For all I knew, the girl never got it, or the
grandma said it was from her.
When I was growing
up, I wasn't allowed to see my paternal grandma, who never failed to buy us
Christmas gifts and leave them with my maternal grandma. My maternal
grandma would change the name tags to say they were from her. AS an adult
I found out my favorite childhood doll had really come from my other grandma.
Oh, well, I thought, just let it go. And so I did.
About a year and a
half later, I was out walking my dog and I saw a little girl about seven years
old playing in a yard.
When I passed by
her she yelled out, "I've seen that dog before!" I told her we
live around the corner, and sometimes I walk him by here. She came over
and bent down to pet the dog. It struck me that she might know the
neighborhood kids I knew. They always told me they had a friend named Joan
(not her real name) who lived on our block. I asked the girl if her name
was Joan. "No, that's my grandma's name," she answered.
Then the light bulb
went on.
I asked her if she
knew Aaron and Nick and Melanie, and she did. Then I got curious and
wondered if she might have been the unknown little girl I bought the dolls for.
I asked her, "Not last Christmas, but the one before that, did you get a
couple of dolls for Christmas?"
"Oh, yes, Lucy
is the light-haired one, and Debbie is the dark-haired one. They are
inside sleeping right now," she replied.
"Was that all
you got that year?" I asked.
"I think I got
some other stuff, but I don't remember," she said.
"Who gave you
the dolls?" I asked.
"Aaron's
grandma," she answered.
Ah ha! That
was it . . . the grandma was going to take all the credit. To prove myself
right I asked, "Who did she say they were from?" And God, in his
mysterious ways, had to show me I can never give too much – even if I do it
with a rotten heart.
I got a lump in my
throat when the response came from her: "She said they were from an
angel."