Five

Today I am thankful for loving, giving, unselfish friends.

Once upon a time, this past summer to be exact, I was overwhelmed. There was too much to do around the house and not enough time or energy to do it. I was alone and lonely. And depressed. And my flower beds were overrun with weeds.

Once upon a time my friend had a baby with a broken heart. And the baby had to have a lot of open heart surgeries. And she was having problems eating. In fact she threw up multiple times a day. And she had other issues as well.  And my friend had to work as well as take care of her baby and husband and home. And my friend was overwhelmed. She was probably a little bit lonely as well because when you have a baby you get isolated and when your baby has special needs the isolation is even bigger I would imagine.

Once upon a time my friend said she was going to bring her family to my house for family home evening. I came home from work in time to be there before them.  Except her brother had another committment so he came early and had started cleaning up my yard.  Then within half an hour the rest of her brothers, sisters, brothers in law, sisters in law, nieces, nephew, mother and father and she and her husband and baby had decended upon my yard and in short order, with Brandi, Ethan and I working alongside them, had it looking beautiful. Then without further ado they gathered their tools, and took them and a pickup bed full of debris and left me with beauty. And love. And gratefulness.

They didn't have to do that. I am a stranger to most of the family. But they did it because they are a family that serves and lives Christ-like lives and know how to give of themselves.  And I love every single one of them with all my heart and would do anything for them because there is no way I can ever re-pay what they did for me that day.

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Indeed