I copied it from another site. should this be ok Jack? I was looking for a stories forum but didn’t find one.Feels good to share and read inspiring stories

Yes. Another one below

The Snowsuit
-By Kay
“Can you tell me if anyone in our store does community service?” Bill asked. A person spoke up and said, “I know that Rose does. She helps the homeless at her church.” Bill, my husband, had recently been transferred to this store as the Store Manager. Bill liked to recognize employees who worked in community service. He met with Rose and found out about the outreach program operating out of her inner-city church. Bill told Rose that he thought that I would enjoy helping her.

When Bill came home that night after the two-hour commute, he told me about his conversation with Rose. I was excited at the idea of helping in such a program. I started to spread the word that Bill had an employee who was helping the homeless out of her church. I asked if anyone wanted to help by donating usable items. The response was amazing.

We lived in a small community where homelessness was unheard of. We had our share of poor people, but to the best of my knowledge, no one was living on the street.

Word spread like wildfire. Churches were calling, offering clothing and food. Once a week I stopped by a church in a nearby town. Each week I loaded the back end of our van with the things the people in their congregation dropped off. An older couple from our congregation gave us a check and told us to use the money to buy Bibles and inspirational materials to take to the mission. On several occasions I came home and found bags of clothing sitting in front of our garage. Every day when Bill drove to work, his car was loaded with help for the homeless, given by total strangers.

I took this opportunity to clean out the closets in our home, too. Bill had an overcoat he seldom wore. I put the overcoat in, along with clothes our children had outgrown and several articles of clothing of my own. Every so often Rose would stop in Bill’s office and tell him stories about the mission. One day she talked about an overcoat that her minister had taken from the clothes we had donated. As Rose described the overcoat, Bill knew it was his. He was happy that he had been able to provide this young minister with at warm coat.

One cold day I walked by our downstairs closet. I noticed a snowmobile suit that had been our oldest son, Todd’s. The thought to put this snowsuit in for the mission immediately came to my mind. I dismissed the thought as I had been saving this snowsuit for Brandon, our youngest son. Todd had died in a car accident a few years before and for some reason, I had saved this snowmobile suit for Brandon. This was one of the very few things I had saved of Todd’s.

I couldn’t believe that the LORD would want me to give up this “special” snowsuit I had been saving all these years. The thought came again, “Put the snowmobile suit in.” I walked over and took it off the hanger. I looked at the tag inside. It was a man’s size small. When Todd died, he was six feet tall. How long had I been keeping this? Brandon wasn’t quite three years old when Todd died. Even now he wasn’t big enough for this suit. I decided it was time to part with this “special” snowmobile suit I’d been saving. I took it off the hanger and laid it lovingly on top of a bag of other clothes for the mission.

Bill’s old store was closing. Almost everything in the store was gone. Now they were getting rid of the racks. We knew the mission could use the racks to hang the clothes on. We rented a Ryder truck and loaded several racks in. We stopped by another church to pick up clothes before we headed two hours north to the mission. Since we’d rented this truck, I decided to ride along. Usually Bill took everything to his store. Then Rose’s husband would come in and pick the things up. Since we had the truck, we were going to drive to the mission and drop the items off. Rose’s husband met us at the store and jumped in the truck to give us directions to the church where the mission was located.

It was a cold day in Cleveland. The wind was blowing and the snow was beginning to fall as we drove in the area where the mission was. As I looked around I could see that this neighborhood was certainly not like the ones I knew. As we pulled up in front of the church I noticed that all of the windows had bars on them. The front door had a huge chain going through the handles.

We stopped the truck in front of the church and opened the door. As we were getting out of the truck, a small black man with a big toothless smile came out to greet us. He ran over to the truck and offered to help. I looked at this man and I looked at Bill. I couldn’t believe my eyes. This little man had Todd’s snowmobile suit on! Tears filled my eyes.

The next day Rose walked in Bill’s office and asked, “Did you see the man in the snowsuit at the mission?” When Bill said he had, Rose said, “You know Bill, there’s a story behind that snowsuit.” Rose went on to tell Bill how this little homeless man was always around to help. Rose said that the day this snowsuit came in he had picked up the bag and the snowsuit fell at his feet. He picked it up and asked if he could try it on. Rose told Bill that she thought it was “rather foolish” that a grown man would want a one-piece snowsuit like this, but she told him to go ahead and try it on. When he tried it on, it fit perfectly! He told Rose that all his life he had wanted a snowsuit like this, and now he finally had one.

When Bill came home and told me this story, the LORD spoke to my heart and said, “Kay, you were wondering why you were saving that snowmobile suit all these years; now you know!” All these years I’d thought I was saving this special snowmobile suit for our son, Brandon. Now I knew that I was actually saving it for a special child of GOD who had always wanted one.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by humour.

The Best Christmas Gift
By Joseph J. Mazzella

The best Christmas gift I ever got was both early and late. My first born child came into this world on December 16th, nine days before Christmas. He was supposed to be a Thanksgiving baby, however, so when my wife went into labor 3 weeks late he had to be delivered by an emergency Caesarean section. My first word when I saw him wasn’t even a word but a sigh of relief, love, and joy. My early Christmas present had a red, splotchy face from being overdue but it was washed several times over the next few days with happy tears from me, my wife, and several grandparents.

My son was named Joseph John after me and “J.J.” as he was called soon became the most cuddled and photographed child around. He was the first grandchild on both sides of the family and spent his first Christmas going from arms to loving arms as everyone wanted a chance to hold him. I looked forward to a blessed life watching my first born grow up to be a strong and smart man.

That dream, though, wasn’t to turn out the way I thought it would. As my son entered his second year we realized that his language wasn’t developing as it should. He only seemed interested in a few things and would jump up and down over and over to amuse himself. We finally got him tested but were given no answers. We were only told that he wasn’t normal. It was raining that day as my wife and I drove home and finally we pulled the car over, held each other, and added our own tears to the storm.

With the end of that dream came the birth of another. We decided to find out exactly what was “different” about our son do all we could to help him become all he could be. Soon a local Doctor saw what the specialists hadn’t. Our son had Autism. In that day very little was known about Autism or what could be done to treat it. My wife and I read every article and researched every treatment there was to help our son. We put our anger at God aside and asked instead for His love and guidance to help us with our boy. We enrolled J.J. in Special Education at school and worked with him everyday at home. We were blessed to get a loving, kind-hearted, and patient personal-aide for him at school and she became like a second mother to him. It was by her side during another Christmas season that my boy spoke his first sentence about the beautiful Christmas tree at the school.

As we continued to work with my son I noticed something else too; his loving spirit was also working on us. His smile was contagious, his cheer was infectious, and his innocent love was purifying. Over the years I became a better, kinder, more loving, and more spiritual person just by being around him. He taught me so much about love, so much about joy, and so much about embracing life. His language continued to improve and he became beloved by his teachers, fellow students, and especially by the school football and basketball teams where he worked as the equipment manager. His loving presence became a comfort to my days. His gentleness helped me to deal with money struggles and career problems. His sweetness helped me when his younger brother was born with an even more severe form of Autism and I gave up teaching to care for them both.

Now as the best Christmas gift I ever got approaches his 28th Christmas with me I have realized that he is the gift that keeps on giving. Like a ray of sunshine he brightens the day of everyone he meets. Like an earth angel he touches the souls of others with his gentle love. He shares his smile with everyone and calls everyone by name. He goes through his life making this Earth a little more like Heaven. He lives out God’s dream for him which is a far better dream than mine ever was.

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas. May your Christmas and all of your days be full of the best gift there is, the gift my two special sons give me everyday-the gift of LOVE. God bless you always.