A week before Christmas, I was ready to give up and tell my family I was a failure. My wife and two children were baking cookies for Christmas in our small mobile home and had no clue I had lost my job and had no money for Christmas. So instead, I had been outside most of the day, tilling up soil for our winter garden. I did not desire a garden, but it was my excuse not to be in the house.
Occasionally, my wife would come outside and say, “Don’t take all day! We have some warm cookies for you, and the children want to watch ‘Frosty the Snowman’ with you.”
“I’ll be in shortly, dear,” I replied.
How would I tell them? My friends told me to have Faith, and I replied, “Faith in what? You might believe in God, but if God was so good, why would he terminate me, especially before Christmas?”
I had one area to dig up and would skip it, but something told me to finish. I put my shovel on the ground and hit something. I reached down, picked up a little jewelry box that had almost disintegrated, and noticed a little pendant inside. I took it out, and it was a silver pendant that said “Faith.” I thought that was strange. I put it in my pocket and decided to call it quits. I didn’t want to think about it, but the word FAITH kept playing repeatedly. One part of me thought, ‘Is God trying to tell me something?’
I went into the house and put on my happy face. We sat watching the television with our hot chocolate and warm gumdrop cookies and turned on “Frosty.” About halfway through the show, there was a knock at the door. A man with his wife and a baby was standing there. They said their car had broken down and asked if they could use our phone. “Of course,” I said.
While the man was on the phone, the mom sat down and enjoyed hot chocolate. The baby was so happy and smiley. I asked if I could hold her, and as she handed the child to me, Mom said, “Her name is Faith.” I did a double-take and asked, “Did you say, Faith?”
“Yes,” replied the mom.
The man got off the phone and came into the living room. He said the tow truck would be there in a few minutes. So I just commented, “I love your little girl’s name, Faith. Is there a special reason for that?”
“There sure is,” said the mom. “Before there was Faith, I had two miscarriages. Joe, my husband, lost his job, and our lives were falling apart. We were desperate for an answer, and we attended a live nativity production around this time of the year. That night God spoke to us so clearly in his sweet, quiet voice. He told us to have Faith. He knew our situation and that everything would be okay. A few days later, Joe got his dream job, Construction Supervisor, with one of the construction companies in the State. Three months later, I became pregnant again. When we saw our precious newborn, we knew to call her Faith. Then she looked at me and said, “You are holding Faith, a precious gift that God has given us as a constant reminder that when trouble comes, and it will come in all of our lives, we must hold onto Faith. With God, all things are possible. You must never let go of Faith.”
That day was a changing point in my life. I told my wife of my job loss, and she said we must have Faith. A few days later, Joe called me and offered me a job only a few miles from my house, and it was twice as much money as I was making in my previous job.
