Charlottesville, Virginia—

In November of 2017 My husband of ten years called me from the area of Wyoming where he works trucking oil. He told me that in two weeks when he came to visit it would be his last. He had a new girlfriend and he hated the place we live and he was not going to come back. He came for his visit to home we’d shared for the last two years, a fair sized apartment. He slept on the couch the entire time he was here refusing to even discuss his reasons other than that he needed to be happy too. He was tired of me being “good for nothing except taking care of his daughter” and that this whole mess was my fault anyway for moving us out here. I got to work finding a job and within that two week period started training. Our daughter developed a bad cold and when I went to try to buy her medicine i found the bank account had been emptied. When I called the man who had been our provider he treated me like all I ever did was use him for money and told me it was his by right. He had worked for it, i had not, and I needed to go figure my problems out without His money. I did. Over the next several months I got buy through the grace of our Father in Heaven, and the skin of my teeth we got by. Eventually a support order was filed and he started paying support which allowed us to afford to stay in the apartment that had become home to my daughter and I. Midway through the year I received a fifty cent raise that disqualified us from being able to get food stamps. That raise didn’t quite cover the loss of that resource but somehow we were always able to scrape bye. Before I knew it we were having thanks giving and I was contemplating Christmas as a single mother working just to pay the bills, I pondered what kind of Christmas it would be. We hadn’t the funds needed for a tree nor could I really afford any presents. All too soon it was two weeks before Christmas and my daughter and I for lack of a tree decorated the living room with lights. Pride of place was given to a portrait of Jesus that still hangs in our living room. Rather than a tree we place our meager gifts under the tile painting of the Savior. That Sunday a young man approached me after the sacrament meeting service and handed me a fairly heavy simple brown box. As he did so in a shy quiet voice he said, “I can’t tell you who it’s from but Merry Christmas.” The intensity of his stare as he walked away after I thanked him prompted me to open the box when we got home. I was shocked to find a mason jar brimming with change and bills. There was nearly three hundred dollars in that jar once we counted it all out. I sat in my living room under the blinking lights tearfully saying a prayer of gratitude. Not only did I now have enough to pay the rent, I was able to get my daughter a few small but wonderful gifts. Through the kindness of a complete stranger we felt together the true meaning of the Christmas season. Accompanied by the jar was a small book. The Christmas Jar. I am grateful beyond words for this wonderful story and the actions it continues to prompt. May the Lord bless all those who give.