Time to Count Our Blessings

It's Christmas Day night and it's important to reflect on all the wonderful blessings we have. In the last blog I talked about surviving the Ice Storm of 2007 and how I'm not a pioneer. This blog will be devoted to counting my many blessings, especially those that were highlighted during and after the ice storm.

We lost many trees in our yard because of the ice storm. Our yard looked like a bomb had been dropped in it. We are in the process of selling our house--we have a contract on it and are trying to move out by January 9th. The people buying the house have been quite particular and difficult at times. After looking at the yard damage they said we needed to clean it all up which we felt was a quite daunting task while trying to pack up and move. We have 10 acres of mostly wooded property. The people buying the house were basically threatening to not close on the house if we don't have it all cleaned up by Jan. 9th. This put me into major stress mode not knowing where we would be living in the next few weeks and especially stressed about possibly being stuck with two houses. We went to church the Sunday after the storm. Our bishop took the 2nd hour of church to assess the needs in the ward. Roy wasn't going to say anything about our needing help cleaning up our yard. But of course the ward knew what a difficult situation we were in. During our power outage we received a generator from the church which was wonderful. During the meeting the ward made plans to have work parties to clean up lots of yards.

I was still stressed--I made myself sick and had to come home from work early one day. As I was laying in bed, I heard the sound of chain saws. I looked out the window and there was a man from our ward and two of his co-workers. They cleaned up our entire front of the house--about 2 or 3 acres worth. They wanted to be anonymous but of course I found them out. Later our friend said they were trying to be like the three Nephites. (See http://www.mormon.org/ for an explanation or ask one of your Mormon friends) We were so thrilled and blessed by their kindness.

Then on the next Saturday a work party was scheduled but we thought it had been cancelled because it was raining. But promptly at 8:30AM a whole crew showed up with chain saws etc. and cleaned up most of the backyard. Again a huge blessing. I don't what I would do without our ward family.

During the storm we were blessed by the kindess of ward family members who shared their electricity (in the form of laundry) and fed us while we warmed up and waited.

On this Christmas Day I'm supremely grateful for people who share their love of Jesus by serving and helping others. I'm grateful for people who look out for others and take upon them other's burdens just as the Savior preached. I hope I can be better about helping those in need.

Comments

Julie J. said…
Are you still counting blessings or can I request another post?
Kimi said…
Time to update the blog Alycin! I'm looking forward to getting reconnected to you and your family.

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