An Unexpected Gift

The gift wasn’t wrapped in paper or tied with ribbon. It didn’t come in a box left on a doorstep or inside a card slipped under a door. It arrived quietly, like a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, released just in time. It wasn’t anonymous; I know exactly who sent it, but it was unexpected. A kindness from a higher power I had spent years pushing away. God, patient as ever, must have looked at me in all my stubbornness and said, “She’s still mine. Watch what I can do.”

I’d spent a long stretch of my life running, numb, reckless, and convinced that my mistakes disqualified me from anything good. Pills, bad choices, and broken places I walked into with my eyes wide open. Then, all that was viewed was chaos; afterward, there would exist a map. Maybe those wrong turns weren’t accidents after all. Maybe God allows us to wander just far enough that we learn how badly we need His way home. However, I was still so blind that a message had to be given to me when my eyes were closed.

My unexpected gift came right before the season of miracles, before lights went up and songs filled every store, before manger scenes appeared on front lawns. It was like God was preparing me early. Handing me something precious so I could celebrate a Savior’s birth with a heart that was finally willing to be saved.

A few weeks before November 5th, 2023, everything in my world started shifting. I made a decision that felt like relief and fear all in one, leaving someone else’s alcoholic grandson behind, finally, and leaving my father’s home. Where life had become loud, sharp, and too unstable to breathe in anymore. Desperation fueled the choice, along with a faint hope for improvement.

I didn’t know then that walking away would be the first step toward receiving something I never believed I deserved. It wasn’t a punishment. It was a rescue. It wasn’t the end yet, but the beginning of something different. It was the invitation to a new beginning, the kind you can’t see until you’re already halfway through it, looking back in awe at the God who carried you farther than you ever intended to go.

I had left to go to a homeless shelter to hopefully move away from all the chaos and start my own life without depending on anyone, just me and my kids, with a fresh start. Another and I, whom I will not name, planned this. She was the great-grandmother and the grandmother of my children’s father. I was never aware that she had other intentions, and to this day, I still don’t truly know or understand what she was thinking, but I am thankful that God was the master puppet behind it all.

Before I went to the shelter, there was a wait to find an opening, so someone paid for us to stay in a hotel for about a week. I also received help from a social worker who assisted us along the way with resources. Their great-grandmother was very determined about all of this going through, and the pressure started piling on. Papers, resources, applications, and more. Unfortunately, the state I live in, all of those are limited. Even if it says they are available, it’s usually not. Sadly, no luck for me, but I did finally get accepted into a shelter, so that was a start.

Fortunately, I got exactly what I needed handed to me the last night we stayed in the hotel before going to the shelter. The night of November 5th was when a one-of-a-kind dream and a wonder I could not comprehend, projected into my very self. In this dream, I was driving in my car down the road alone while it was storming and flashing lightning across the sky. Suddenly, I was paralyzed with my mouth agape. I felt every bit of it, almost as if I was in another dimension. A loud voice from the sky appeared along with an older man with a long white beard, and his head was held down low, almost as if he was weeping. No, not Santa, but someone else with great authority. His voice, strong and sturdy like the thunder roaring, only said, “Jeremiah 31:3.”

That voice carried through to me with power and warmth, concurrently as if it were meant for me and only me. Suddenly, with my mouth still hanging wide open, in the sky appeared what I can only describe as a portal, swirling open to give me a glimpse of my kids’ great-grandmother, nagging and saying things, over and over. Honestly, it didn’t make sense to me. It was not truly formed words, just obvious nagging, complaining, and plotting against me. Something about it was just known.

When I woke, honestly, I kind of just shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t feel a difference, but I had to look up the words spoken by that man in the sky. Jeremiah 31:3, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” This touched me, but I still thought, WOW, a cool dream, and thank you for giving me that message, but what was all that crazy, chaotic stuff happening in the portal about? Just a dream, right? Oh, how stubborn and wrong I am. I moved on and went about my day getting ready for the shelter, but still trying to be aware of the message given in the dream.

The next day, we finally arrived at the shelter, and things began to get out of control. My kids were behaving like heathens, running away constantly, tearing things down, pulling plugs out of the wall. They shoved us into a room with three other people, a mom with kids, and made them move all their belongings out of the way. The staff spoke to them rudely. We weren’t given any supplies as mentioned on their site. Along with other things like the savings program and placement in homes, were untrue. The mother that we were in the room with said she had been there for five years. Truly, I say to you, I began to panic.

Later that night, the lady in charge finally came back and handed me the supplies she forgot to give me, in and out like the wind, questions still boggling in my mind. Bedtime came, and the night guard had finally arrived. Once we were settled into bed, my son became sick, vomiting all over the beds and floors. In this shelter, you were not allowed to have a trash can in your room. So, what came next was a frantic and upset guard who was being rude and pushy, saying, “You’re going to have to clean this up now!” He finally found the mop, and I got everything cleaned up. However, I’m still panicking, so I call their great-grandmother, spilling the details on everything that has happened and speak of possibly going back to the hotel. She begins to get irate and tells me to put the guard on the phone right now! I do so, and she accomplished getting us moved to the empty room next door at least.

However, after speaking with the guard, she came to the conclusion that I am a big liar. I spoke with her earlier that day as well and told her how they didn’t give us any supplies and some of the other things that weren’t true on the website. Her belief is that if it says it online, then it must be true. While the kids were getting into the new beds, the guard’s attitude changed when he saw we were having a hard time. He begins to try and help me and speak kind words, asking questions like, “Are you sure you have nowhere else to go?” “There has to be somewhere, some family.” You know what, there is. My grandparents are about an hour away. I called my grandfather in the middle of the night, and his reply was simple: “Of course you can come here.” I packed up our things quickly and headed straight there.

We finally lay down on his couch with a puke bucket next to my kid for the few hours of the night we had left. When my grandfather turned on the news at 6 AM I awoke, and I had poor service on my phone, so I stepped outside to make a phone call to their great-grandmother to give her an update. This is where my portal vision had become reality. She let loose so many spiteful words. “Do you want to live there forever?” were the only words I remember. The rest was so jumbled, it just sounded like complaining and only that. Then the moment when I began to feel crazy and remember my dream, was when her husband was also on the call and just kept repeating, “I don’t think she understands what you’re saying,” repeating it over and over, and those voices began to fade because all I could think was either I’m insane or that dream was really a vision. I had been given a message from something more divine.

She told me I needed to take the kids right now to their father and grandfather. Almost like I’d done something wrong. I, being spineless and a little afraid at that moment, agreed but also did not. This fear of what in the world was going on basically paralyzed me. Running on little sleep, I decided I would take a nap and wake up with a clearer head. I got no sleep, and my phone had so many missed calls. Their father came to get them and told me to follow him back to his grandfather’s house, but since I didn’t get any sleep, I asked if I could get some sleep once we got there. On the way, following my kids, I got a phone call. She called DFACS on me. For absolutely no reason. I began to believe her whole plan was just to make it to where I was out of the picture. I signed the papers for the kids to stay with them, even though I had a choice to say no. Something was nudging me to just do it, even if I did not want to.

While the kids were with them, my grandmother got terribly sick the next day and wound up in the hospital for a month. I believe every bit of that divine message was for a reason. Since the kids were gone, I had the opportunity to take care of her for that entire month in the hospital and forward, and most importantly, I became a believer in God without even asking to be. What an honor. I was able to navigate myself and know everything was going to be okay because I had God on my side. There was no need to worry about what happened next because I had enough trouble that day.

I moved in with my grandparents to take care of them, and I got my kids back a couple of days before Christmas. The gift that has been given is quite remarkable, unexpected, and came in an unimagined way. Away from my troubled life and into the flesh of spirit, not just Christmas spirit. Oh, and by the way, I never took another pill or allowed chaos to take over me after the night of the dream. My life transformed because of an unexpected gift. I realized I was right; I needed a life where I depended on no one except God. His spirit was my present, and he was so kind and patient to wait for the right time to give it to me. He is so good and so true to His word. I want to encourage anyone who feels lost, because you never know, you may be found without asking to be.