The Grace of God

My son-in-law has just reached the age that I was when I changed careers and went back to school full-time for two years to earn a secondary math teaching license.  I knew there was something important about that age to me; it just took me a while to remember.

During those years of very tight times with my husband working part-time, me working part-time, and our children heading into adolescence, I had many occasions to get a sense of God's grace, but there was one time in particular.

During that time I received a gift certificate in the mail from a local grocery store.  It was sent directly from the store, and the gift giver was "Santa Claus".  I did not recognize the hand-writing of the said Santa.

This was a dilemma for me.  If the certificate had come from an organization, then I could have sent them a thank-you and felt good about their generosity.  If the certificate had come from a friend, then I could have given him/her some home-made cookies as a thank-you gift.  I had no way to know from whom the gift certificate came.  It was a gift neither asked for nor earned.  It was the best representation of the Grace of God that I had ever experienced in the temporal world.

I used the gift certificate with the help of my family to make a wonderful Christmas dinner, and, no, I never did find out who sent it, but the memory of the blessing still haunts me after 20 years.