Chocolate Chip Blessings…

The Lord really showed Himself to me the other day and it was just what I needed.  I don’t think I am the only Christian that feels “down in the dumps” every now and then and really needs to see something special from the Lord. Since we have been in Germany, satan has thrown one curve ball after another to cause us to feel discouraged and defeated and I must admit, sometimes he nearly won with me. Since I have been here I have often called out to the Lord and asked Him where He was, and why wasn’t He fighting for me. Of course He is, and He has never forsaken me just as He promised! I like to blame my womanly “hormones” too often, but the plain fact of it is, my discouragement is sin. But the Lord knew that I needed a blessing so I could see that He was still with me, and on Saturday He gave that blessing to me in the form of chocolate chips

Just a little background info so you can better appreciate this story…

Our vehicle has been out of commission for a little while.  We have one local store here in our village that is more of a “mom and pop” shop. All of our grocery shopping has been done there, at the local bakery, and our neighbors small farm. It has been interesting and I am starting to get used to the German food.I have even started to learn now to order my lunch meat in grams at the market. Those poor ladies probably dread when I come in! ha! But since we have not had the car over the holidays, I had to miss out on cooking all the traditional food that we were used to eating on Christmas/New Years. I cooked a ham on Christmas since we have been married. Since they don’t sell hams here, I had to cook a goose instead. It was very good and we enjoyed it though! I wasn’t able to cook alot of the holiday cookies and other baking that we normally did, and I was feeling a little blue about it. When I ran out of chocolate chip morsels, I really got discouraged! haha..I had used up my last bag on some cookies and Bella and I were wondering where we were going to get more. I was telling Kevin my “woes”….”we are here, in a strange country…I can’t cook a ham…I can’t get hot chocolate….and I’M ALL OUT OF CHOCOLATE CHIP MORSELS!!!!” As I told Kevin all my problems, he looked at me like I was crazy. He proceeded to count all the blessings for me, but I was too busy pining over all the american food I missed and the fact that we didn’t have a car to go grocery shopping. Our cupboards were bare, and the market was closed for the holidays!

On Saturday, the big grocery store opened up in the next city, We decided to walk there as a family while it was lightly snowing outside. We thought it would be an adventure for all of us to get out of the house and get some exercise. 7 Kilometers didn’t seem that far away! We were quickly realizing how far 7 Km was with 6 kids and the snow coming down. For those of you who are like me, and don’t know your Km measurements…7 km is roughly 4 1/2  miles away. So that is around 9 miles total..walking with 6 kids, in the snow, to get some groceries!  We were regretting our decisions but we just wanted to get to the store to get warm and get some food. We loaded up two backpacks and the bottom of the stroller up at Aldi’s and headed home. That trip was even worse! But thankfully a friend who had called earlier that day and asked if she could drop by with some freezer items and dry goods to give us, saw us on the road and rescued us! We were about 2 miles from our house and we were so glad to get in that warm car! She had to pick us up in two shifts so we could all make it home safely. She had told us that her and her family were going back to the states for 6 months and she didn’t want her food to go bad so she asked if I could use it. Of course you never want to turn down free food so I gladly accepted! She came in with a few large baskets of food. She completely filled up my 3 drawers in my freezer, and filled my pantry cabinets with dry goods. As I was unpacking all this wonderful American food I thought I would never see again, what do you think I saw in those baskets? yes….bags and bags of chocolate chip morsels!!! I was so excited! I didn’t’ ask the Lord for them, but He knew how down I was feeling about silly little things like that and decided to bless me anyway! It was so wonderful, not only the fact that Bella and I can make cookies again, but that the Lord was listening and wanted to give me some encouragement! It is good to know that the Lord is still with me, hearing my prayers, listening to my pathetic woes, and giving me chocolate chip blessings

P.S. I did finally locate some kako (cocoa) for some hot chocolate, and a box of shokolade trink (the German version of hot chocolate mix) at the store the other day The kids are glad for that in this cold, snowy weather!