I've had the holiday season on my mind the last few days, especially holidays growing up. I looked through my old journals and found the entry I as looking for. I wrote it 11 years ago when I was 14:
December 23, 2003
Something happened tonight that woke me up to reality. Now I know that I am truly blessed and it doesn't show in the packages under the tree. When this Christmas season started I was really ungrateful and I acted spoiled. I was mad that we weren't going to get a lot this Christmas because we don't have any money. I prayed that we would be able to have a good Christmas. Well the Lord made that a possibility in a different way. Someone came by and brought us 3-4 boxes of food. Our friends brought us something we needed. They probably aren't going to have any turkey for dinner because they gave it to us. I don't know why I'm making such a big deal out of this but I learned something today. We don't need to be rich to be happy. We have great friends and neighbors who really care about us. I don't really care what I get any more. Whatever I get will be more than enough. I'm not going to forget this for a while and I just want to thank those people who have taught me so much by their unselfishness.
I have never forgotten that night. Every season I think of the kindness that was shown to my family and the lesson I learned from it. We didn't have very much money for a lot of the years I was growing up. But we always had each other. We always had our home that was filled with love. It was a safe place to come home to and I always knew there were people there that loved me. Every year I realize more and more just how special of a blessing that was. I will probably never know who brought my family food that night, but I will always be thankful for them. They taught a selfish and spoiled teenage girl the true meaning of the holiday season.
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