West Jordan, Utah

It was 3 days before Christmas and I was out Christmas shopping with my mom. There was a thrift store I wanted to go to several miles away from our home, even though there were several other thrift stores closer by. I wanted to go to this one because having been to many of the thrift stores in the area, I felt that this one might have a better selection of the items I was looking for. I married into a big family, with 16 brother and sister-in-laws and 15 nieces and nephews (and counting). There is no expectation to give a gift to everyone, but I still wanted to do something nice for my sisters-in-law and their kids, especially because their kids are some dear playmates of my own children. I spent quite some time perusing the items in the store, searching for gently worn baby clothes for the new arrivals that year, or articles that reminded me of a certain niece or nephew which I thought they might like. When I was done looking at clothes, it was over to the books to see if there were any gently used children’s books that would be appropriate to add to the piles of gifts in my cart. After some time carefully browsing and selecting some books, I went over to the toy aisle to see if there were any treasures there. I found some trucks I knew my little boy and my nephews would love, and some stuffed animal unicorns, which my 2 year old daughter had been asking for and searching the closets in the house for for weeks. It was then that I noticed a couple standing nearby, watching me. Not sure if my cart was blocking their way or if they had also been eyeing the unicorns, I apologetically adjusted my cart so it wasn’t sticking out in the aisle so much. Then the lady asked me if she could talk to me for a few minutes so I said sure. She explained a family tradition that she and her husband had of collecting coins in a jar all year and then giving them away to someone at Christmas time. She said they called them their Christmas coins. She then told me that they would like to give the jar they had been collecting in all year long to me. I hesitated a moment, thinking that there must be someone who would need it more than me. I told the woman that I thought they might be able to find someone who needed it more than me, and she responded that it isn’t about who needed it most, but about who the jar was meant for. She told me that on this day, she and her husband had come to the store because they had a feeling they would find the person there who the jar was for. She told me that the feeling had come to each of them as they quietly observed the shoppers in the store that day, that the jar was for me. When she told me this, my eyes filled up with tears. I know that the feelings she and her husband had received were guided by Heavenly Father. Here was a couple who I had never met before in my life, offering me some ease to a heavy burden I’d been bearing the past several weeks. Following an incident of heated arguing and domestic violence in my home, I had moved back to my parents house several weeks prior. With protective orders in place, my husband and I wouldn’t be allowed to spend Christmas together with our kids. My children had been going back and forth between Mom and Dad a couple days each week, and I wouldn’t be able to see them until Christmas Day. As a now single, working, expectant mother of soon-to-be 3 young children, there is no way the couple could have known what the jar would mean to me as I began facing the challenges of a broken family. I am very thankful for this couple and their careful observation and following their promptings of who their jar was meant for that year.