Faith in Humanity...Restored

It's never really been lost. My faith, that is.

There are just days when I wonder where the good people are.

I hear the news, read the stories of all the horrible things that people do to eachother, and I wonder, can we ever be good enough to counteract all that evil?

It can be a hopeless feeling, a suffocating feeling.

And then something happens, something small, perhaps not a big enough to make the news, but big enough to help me see that Heavenly Father has sprinkled more good people around the world than I realized.

Yesterday, half an hour before I headed out the door with the kids to go to their dentist appointments, (all 6 of them) I thought I should check our new insurance (since Jeff got a new job) and make sure that we could still see our most favorite dentist ever!

Well, as luck would have it, our new insurance seems to only cover walk-in dental clinic type places situated in strip malls.

So I told my children, some of whom began to cry, that we wouldn't be able to go to our dentist anymore and then I started to cry (yes, we love their dentist that much) and I tearfully called the office to inform them that we would not be able to keep our appointment and how sad we were about the whole thing.

I called Jeff, crying, Julia and Anne Marie sat and cried with me and then the phone rang.

It was our dentist's office.

The gal I had talked to had gone in to Dr. Cody, told him what happened and how I was crying and how she could hear the kids crying in the background and that she didn't know what to do and felt so bad for us, and he said "Well call her back and tell her to come in anyway, it will be an early Christmas present to help with their transition."

I. Kid. You. Not.

I was stunned, almost speechless, I started crying some more. I told the kids, they couldn't believe it. I called Jeff, he couldn't believe it.

Can you believe it?

Did you know people still did that sort of thing?

And it's not like it was just one kid I was bringing in, he knew I have 6 children.

So we piled into the car and made our 50 minute trek (yes, we love our dentist that much).

Everyone got their teeth cleaned, flouride, checkups, no cavities in sight. They left with their goody bags full of new toothbrushes, floss toothpaste and stickers.

I even got a new toothbrush, and the dear little baby that I tend got a little baby toothbrush as well.

I thanked Dr. Cody profusely, told him how much we loved them all and that we were going to try and figure out how to get our own dental insurance so that we could keep coming to him. (We love them THAT much, have I mentioned that?)

He seemed a little embarassed at our gratitude and said "Well, this is a tough thing this time of year, and money isn't everything."

I started to cry again.

And are you imagining some older dentist with a lot of world exerience, student loans paid off and money in the bank to spare?

Well guess what? He's younger than me with a wife and 2 little children.
Somebody raised him right.

It was such a Christlike example of giving and love. It humbled me to see that kind of generosity alive and well in the world.

Dr. Cody made my children's day a little brighter, instead of being a sad day.

And he didn't have to do any of it. We have insurance, I could have just found another dentist later on. He could have gone about his day and not worried about the feelings of my sweet children. But he didn't. And it made all the difference in the world to our little family.

Now doesn't that just make you want to be a better person, to run out and help someone else?

It's really the true spirit of Christmas.

I saw a sticker on my neighbor's car yesterday that said "Keep Christ in Christmas"

I couldn't agree more.