blessed again!

yesterday, i was telling a friend about the different blessings i have had come about over the last few weeks. it all started with the bless back project that our church did a few weeks ago. pastor unleashed a week's offering ($40,000) to the people of elevation to use to bless someone else. jamil and i combined ours and gave it to a very special young lady in our life. we have known her since she was a young teenager and now she is about to graduate from ASU in december. she will be getting a degree in elem. ed. (a girl after my own heart!) she has babysat for us a lot sometimes for little or no money, she has even taken care of our kiddos for a whole week at a time on two different occasions. she is really special to us!! so anyway, she surprised us by coming to visit the day that we got the money and so we blessed her with what we were blessed with. it was so fun for us.

a few days later we were given a gift card to a restaurant from the mom of the little boy i babysit. that was really exciting and very unexpected. then last week, we were given a gift from a wonderful group of ladies at elevation, in fact a few of them i didn't even know and had just met them minutes before. they used their bless back money to bless us. they gave us a gift card to a restaurant, some cash and a night of babysitting!! wow, we were so humbled by this act of love. we could hardly believe it. we decided to give the first gift away to another couple we know. so we could bless someone else, since we have been blessed twice.

i entered a fellow blogger and new friend's fall bloggy giveaway (have you seen those?) for a baby sling - which she makes! and she chose me to receive the giveaway. here is the best part: she is making 2 of them (no i am not pregnant or having twins!) for me. when i entered her contest i told her i would like to have a sling b/c i have 2 friends with new babies that have been going through some tough stuff and i want to bless them each with a sling.

it has been so fun to give blessings and receive them too. my love language is gifts so i am so in my element! i love to give gifts and receive them. it is how i best express love. it is really hard to do that on a tight one income budget - really hard. but God knows my heart and he has given me gifts and given me ways to give gifts to others. He is in the big and the small things of our life everyday - that is soooo encouraging.