Christmas Jar Story: 'Our children are so happy and were jumping up and down'

Garden Grove, CA:

We are the newest recipient of the Christmas jar, to be honest with you i am still speechless but it came a such good time.

This past year has been very difficult for our family and i was struggling to maintain a stable job just to provide for my wife and my 3 small childrens of age 10, 6 and 15 months old.

Everyday has been a daily struggle just to put food on our table as my part-time job was only enough to cover our rent so we had nothing left for food, gas, baby diapers/formulas.

We solely depends on local food pantry for our food and when our kids are sick, we go to low cost clinic to get them treated and we can't even afford to pay the low cost fee.

On top of this, my wife is dealing with her pain in her wrist but she cannot get treated because we don't have any insurance.

We pick up cans/bottles on the week-end as a family to help put gas in our car.

We're struggling yes! but we are going through this as a family. And no matter how hard the situation is we're making it together.

This year as for the past 2 years, i didn't think that anything would change, as our children are now accustomed to not having a Christmas or gifts.

I sometimes is afraid of them losing faith and not believing in Santa Claus anymore but it's beyond my control.

My pastor called me telling me that a lady that he has never seen before called him to tell him that she had a gift for our family and she wanted to bless our family. She just found out that he was my Pastor.

He met me at work and gave me a jar wrapped and a book. I was speechless and i didn't want to open it and i waited to get home and open it with my wife and kids.

I was very nervous on my way home not knowing what to expect. When my wife opened the jar. We were dumbfounded by what we saw. There was $331 in cash in the jar.

We are so humbled and touched the fact. Someone has decided to bless our family in such a way.

My wife and I, we just hugged and cried. Because we are not used to peoples being nice to us.

There i was hours ago, worrying about not being able to get a Christmas tree or gifts for our kids and now we can actually afford to get a Christmas, ornaments and gifts for our children. We just got a tall Christmas, ornaments, and food and baby diapers and gifts for our 2 oldest ones.

Our children are so happy and were jumping up and down the fact that we have a Christmas. Our tree smells so good and i actually even forgot how good it smells.

We don't need much to make us happy.

We are so blessed and thankful for the Lady who decided to bless us, and if she happen to read it, please know that we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Thank you for helping us to keep the spirit of Christmas alive for our children.

We can at least relax for a short moment and enjoy our Christmas tree and finally feel like any other family.

May the Lord bless this precious Lady and her family everyday for what she has done for our family.

We will pray for her and her family on a daily basis. Praise God!!!

We will read the book as a family and may we one day be able to give a Christmas jar and bless another family.

God Bless you all.