What We Can See If We Will Just Look

Last year one a rough year. So busy with 2 medical kids and procedures and surgeries, dr appts and therapies non stop. Thanksgiving was hard not being with family....we felt jumbled this year and that was a weird feeling we had never felt before. Christmas was hard. We didnt really buy our kids gifts, other people did. We have been trying to play catch up ever since shaun lost his job in May. He has had jobs since, but none that pay even close to what he was making before. Right before thanksgiving I opened my door to everything I needed to make Thanksgiving dinner. I cried, and prayed that whoever did this would know the magnitude of impact they had just had on our family. But more than that, I prayed for them to be blessed....to have what they needed in that very moment. I still don't know who it was, and I'm ok with that, but I promise it was not by mistake that thanksgiving dinner made it to our doorstep the way it did. Now fast forward to Christmas. Payzlee had been sick non stop for 2 months. I was tired, I was worn down, and more than anything I felt forgotten. I felt alone with all the trials going on. I prayed to see tender mercies. I prayed daily for a week for them, just to know someone cared. I really thought I was alone and there was no way Heavenly Father even knew my name. About a week later I had a crazy stressful day. It was another week full of dr appts and a sick baby. I was sitting on the floor trying to organize and fold laundry when there was a knock on my door. It was late, 8 ish ...and shaun wasn't home. I was skeptical to answer. I heard car doors slam and people running. I opened my door to find a HUGE basket full of everything I would need for Christmas dinner AND MORE. I went to lift the basket and almost fell over. That thing was heavy! My first reaction was to find out who it was, but as I went to go outside, the still small voice told me to leave it be....they needed to perform a random act of kindness without being outted, and I needed to be shown that I hadnt been forgotten. No one knew my heart that week. It was a tired mom heart. It was me, crying in the shower from exhaustion. No one knew yet here was a tender mercy. I brought the basket inside and sobbed. As was the thanksgiving day basket, almost everything in it was Blake safe. Thats not by chance, they knew...it was someone who knew us or had the means to ask someone who did. That in and of itself was something my heart needed to see. Things got even better a couple days later, a friend came over, handed me an envelope and left. It was random, and kind of weird, but I also didnt think anything of it, until i opened it to find a handful of gift cards to the grocery store and gas station. I instantly texted her through tears. She said her work had wanted to help someone who needed it this year and she felt impressed to give them our name. I could hear the voice screaming in my ear, "see, you haven't been forgotten". I was just a tired mom who felt so much desperation and failure, and aloneness. I was a mom secretly crying in the shower so I could put on a brave face for my kids and friends. I knew that Heavenly Father would show me what I needed to see and he did. But I wonder if I hadnt been looking if I would have seen? Yes i would have seen food on my door step, but would I have seen that it was a tender mercy meant for me? Would I have seen that most everything was blake safe? Would I have known that this is what I prayed for. Many MANY other tender mercies happened right before Christmas. Many teeny tiny things of friends randomly dropping things off...Erin seriously ♡♡♡♡♡....... or taking Payz because they knew I needed a break, or coming to visit, or allowing me to but in, and take over their nights...even driving them to their games on the weekends. Yes, driving a friend to a game has become one of my greatest tender mercies! I need her sweet spirit in my life. She impacts me and shows me more of an example of who I should be, when I am around her. She is my soul sister and provides me more tender mercies then I have ever seen. When I look around me, I only see tender mercies. T