Seriously?! really?!

there are lots of ways we feel loved...especially during this difficult time. surprises, friends just coming to hang out, messages & emails, gift cards, hand written cards, meals, babysitting, prayers, a house to stay in Blowing Rock and our friends just being honest about not knowing what to say or do and still risking to be with us in this. some things are really worthy of a blog post. partly b/c i want others to know that these gifts are such a blessing to us and maybe making it public is a good way to share our thankfulness. and writing about it helps me process the heart beyond the gift. like when a group of high school kids got together to pray for me and make hand made cards. seriously?!

this past week has been Charlotte's Restaurant Week. adam and i love restaurant week. wait, let me back up. we love restaurants. we love to eat. i think working in the industry has sometimes made us snobs and other times made us realize a taco truck can make better tacos than a restaurant. we love food. in fact, we like to think we are foodies. so, when this week rolls around twice a year we take advantage of the opportunity to eat at a place we'd never be able to go otherwise. we've discovered some great places and yummy dishes. this year we chose Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse (adam still wants to know what the double eagle means). we got ready for our 5 o'clock reservation. yes, 5:00.

now, a family that qualifies for food & nutrition benefits (i.e. food stamps) probably shouldn't be indulging in something like this. but we are able to compartmentalize such things and have specific funds for the occasion. and really, there is that small part of me that says "we deserve this" right now. (that can be a slippery slope so we have to be careful). any way we were greeted by our server in his tux vest, bow tie and monogrammed cuff links. he seemed pretty normal and nice. (sometimes places like this can have such snooty servers). after taking our water order he came back to our table and began with something like this, "you all must be very special...." to say i knew where he was going might sound strange, but i had an idea. he proceeded to tell us that our meal had been taken care of and "to order whatever you like." i began crying right away. it was almost too much for my little heart to contain. he left us alone to soak this in.

it took us a good 15 or so minutes to receive this gift. adam longer than me. there is a temptation to feel guilty. but if i've learned anything about asking for help and receiving gifts it's that the people who love us don't want us to feel guilty. i'm thinking they want to bless us and relieve some stress and help us out and love us in whatever ways they know how. i was pretty convincing. and completely blown away.

we were "peer pressured" by our server to "order whatever you'd like" and "they insisted on a bottle of wine too." have you seen this place's wine list? i really have no idea how much the wine (or dinner for that matter) cost, but we told the wine guy (yes, a specific guy comes to your table to give you tastings and talk wine...he was super nice too) we wanted to stay cheap. yeah, we said cheap in Del Frisco's. i'm not scared!

we really enjoyed our long dinner as we talked about a variety of things that are weighing heavy on our hearts. this was such a gift to us. so, thank you...i mean, THANK YOU so so so so MUCH to you who did this. and to all of you who do little & big things to love us. we totally understand that it can be hard to "enter into" this with us and love us. none of us has a manual for it. we appreciate the risks our friends and community take as they reach out to us. thank you.

we ended the date at the Evening Muse for a very cool live show of some local music. it was so fun. the other thought i kept having all night was wondering what our server thought. i mean, surely he was impacted by this gift as well. that's the thing...it's reaching beyond us. and that is amazing!