Better to Give?

Yesterday I had THE most FABULOUS day!  I spent the day assembling and shipping my Christmas gift - yup I bought, assembled and mailed my own gift this Christmas.

This past year has been very eye-opening to me in many ways.  One of my biggest realizations was just how difficult it is to be a military family.  Although my hubby is not active, we still face many of the same struggles: - separation, living on a base etc....  This led me on a journey to find a support system to help "get me through" this period of our lives and what a wonderful "system" I found.  My first discovery was a woman I have come to admire greatly - Hallee writes a blog that is truly an inspiration to me (link below) and through her blog I have connected with other military wives as well....

A few weeks ago, Halle wrote about sending care packages to military personnel overseas. ( link here )

It really hit home for me and the more I thought about it, the more I had to do it!  So when the money from our escrow account came in and my hubby asked me to start thinking about what I wanted for Christmas it was simple..... I wanted to pick a soldier and give him my gift this Christmas.

I used Anysoldier.com as Hallee suggested and began my search for "our soldier"... After a whole day of searching for "the one" I found him - he has the same name (except last) as my hubby and also works in the same branch of service.  He is currently forward deployed waiting for his ship to come pick him up.  At that point he will be stuck under the ocean in VERY tight quarters with the few men and woman on his team for months on end...

I wrestled - probably making things much harder than necessary as is typical with my type "A" personality LOL - with what to put in his Christmas Care package,  There are so many things that he goes without on a daily basis that we take for granted and I wanted to give him it all, but postage rates and our budget obviously would not allow.... So I went to Sam's and checked things off my list - a tiny feeling of joy began as I thought about each purchase and imagined them brightening his day!

Yesterday I had only one kiddo in my home daycare so that provided the perfect opportunity to assemble and ship my gift.  We were one of the first through the door at the post office to figure out how to get the package over there and finally decided on 2 big flat rate boxes.... Then I rushed home to pack....
That tiny feeling of joy bubbled over as I began to pack and repack the boxes to make the most of each little crevice so our soldier would have the most I could give him.....  Before long tears were streaming down my cheeks and I sent an email to my hubby to warn him not to call on his lunch break as I was an emotional mess and knew he would not want to deal with that..... But is was good emotion - it was JOY!  The purest joy that comes from giving knowing full well that nothing will come in return.  This man that will get my gift - hopefully in time for Christmas - has given up everything and put his own wants and needs aside to do something great for all of us!  So in reality I do get something material in return - freedom and safety for me and my family!

But even if that were not the case, if I got nothing in return - I experienced the power of giving yesterday and the little package under our Christmas tree that contains the customs forms for our care packages will serve as a constant reminder as the holiday season continues..... that it truly IS better to give than receive!