First, there was a giant tree that fell across our driveway on sunday. One neighbor called and alerted us to the problem. We were blocked in, with no way out. Our neighbors very graciously allowed us to drive on their grass to get out.
A second neighbor, who we had never met, and who I had assumed was a complete hellion, offered to cut the tree up into burnable sizes for a very very fair price. The boys were starting the very long, laborious process of bringing the logs down the driveway, when the neighbor decided he would help them out and loaded his pickup truck full of the logs and helped the boys unload it on our wood pile. When I went out and thanked him, he said "don't worry about it, this is my workout for today"...
My two older boys and my nephew enjoyed a free basketball clinic Monday-Friday of this week. A man who serves not only on our stake high council, but also runs his own business and serves as commissioner for the county, set up the whole camp for every child 12-18 in our stake. They had over 50 kids attending each day. He had volunteers who took off work to help out. It was an incredible sacrifice for all of them to make. Not to mention that many, many adult leaders sacrificed so much already by taking our kids to scout camp and youth conference. I am humbled by the amount of sacrifices people make on behalf of my children. Thank you!
On Friday Dale and I had decided to go to the Oriole's game for a date. As we were walking in, a guy overheard us mention we needed to buy tickets, he offered us two. Dale asked "how much can I give you for them?" and he replied "Cheers!" ...turns out, the tickets were club level and much better than we would have purchased for ourselves. It was a free gift that he really didn't have to give...after the game we were treated to fireworks.
What a beautiful display!!!
On Saturday we enjoyed an incredible view from Sugarloaf mountain. Due to someones great sacrifice in making trail improvements, getting to the top was fairly easy. I was in awe of the view, and also of the time and energy someone, somewhere had put into sharing this view, for free.
I dropped the boys off to play basketball on saturday morning, as I was pondering the week and all the generosity that had been surrounding me, when a father handed me an invitation to a fair for disabled children that he and his wife were throwing. He wanted me to extend the invitation to all members of our community. The fair is free, and all are invited. Did I mention that this father's wife is expecting their fifth child in a few months, and that they just lost their oldest son in May to a disability?
I know I have left some other simple gifts that were given to our family this week...It has all been appreciated greatly!
I am humbled, extremely humbled, at the generosity all around me. Everyone has different gifts, and different talents, and each person has given in their own way to enrich my life, and to bless my family in ways that I didn't even see were necessary.
Thank you to everyone who sacrifices so that somebody, somewhere will get something free. The best things in life truely are free.
2 comments:
Sweet post, Tammy.
You deserve a great week. Thanks for all you do for me!!!
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