God Story #1

As Christmas quickly approaches I want to share some "God stories" with you that have been shared with me lately.

The following is the email I read in worship this weekend. I have taken the names out to honor the family's anonymity. If you want to share a God story that I can share with our church family please email me at cwhitehead@charteroakumc.org.

Hi Pastor Chris,
I had to write and tell you about the "Santa Claus" moment we had last night because it ironically happened when we took our son to see Santa at the mall.

The line to see Santa was long so it took about 30 minutes to reach the front. At one point while I was trying to keep our son entertained, my husband was talking with the young woman behind us who had a son who just turned one in November. As we neared the front of the line, there is a sign that lists all of the photo packages you can purchase. I started complaining to my husband that the cheapest package was $20 (because apparently you can't just buy one picture of your kid with Santa for $5 anymore). He turns to me and whispers, "The girl behind us is here alone with her son because her husband is in Afghanistan." And at the same time that the Holy Spirit spoke the words into my head, they came out of my husband's mouth - "Let's buy her a photo package...the biggest one they have." While my husband tried to convince our son to sit on Santa's lap (which he would have nothing to do with), I talked to the photographer and cashier and purchased the package and we left before the woman could find out what we did.

I would normally have left there disappointed that I didn't get a picture of our son with Santa, but instead I left in tears so overjoyed that we could help make sure that little boy's Daddy had lots of pictures of a moment he had to miss because he was out fighting for our freedom. I know in the grand scheme of things it wasn't that big of a deal...I'm sure the woman was going to buy pictures anyway, but I also know that God had a purpose in it and hopefully she recognized our gratitude and appreciation for what she and her family are sacrificing for the rest of us.