Outpouring

I mentioned this in yesterday's post and I have a little free time today so I thought I would go ahead and post about my "day o' love."

Probably half of you that read this blog will remember this day because you were there throughout my pregnancy. But for those of you that weren't, let me set the stage. February 2008, I was living in Nashville with Larry and Linda Bridgesmith--God's angels on earth--and 8 months pregnant. The Bridgesmith's invited me into their home to live knowing nothing about me other than what Kim Reed, a professor of mine, had told them: I was pregnant and needed a home. I was working part-time at the California Pizza Kitchen in Nashville and had just put a deposit down on an apartment. 

I had nothing for this apartment. NOTHING. My parents had said that they would buy me a bed and if they bought a new kitchen table, I could have the old one, but that was it. And Linda knew this and I had talked with her about it, feeling lucky to have a place to live, to call home when my baby arrived, but I didn't even have a microwave to warm up bottles. So there was a lot of anxiety there. On top of all the anxiety about becoming a mother and providing for this little person. But I had read that maternal anxiety causes stress in the baby so I was doing my best to just take it one day at a time and be grateful for what I had. 

My co-workers had graciously offered to throw me a baby shower at work and Janie, the momma hen in our restaurant, had already told me they were buying my stroller and carseat and had let me pick it out. Thankful already. They were my people. I met them when I was already pregnant so they had never known me otherwise and it was such a comfort to have people that couldn't compare me to my college self or high school self and be disappointed. The day of the shower rolls around and Linda had asked me that morning to have dinner with her afterwards. I arrive at the restaurant nervous, I was pretty sure I would cry. They had such a spread laid out. Yummy CPK appetizers, a beautiful cake, delicious treats made by my friends and people gathered to shower me with love. I felt so unworthy. So grateful but still so unworthy. 

We play funny baby shower games, they wrapped toilet paper around my stomach and embarrassed me, we ate and laughed. And then they presented the gifts. The adorable stroller and carseat and a few other precious baby clothes and gifts...and a card. The card contained a Visa Gift card for $300. They'd been collecting money since Christmas without my knowledge and gifted it straight to me. Tears rolled down my face as I looked around and saw love flowing over from them. And I'm sure they saw the gratitude and love I had for them in return. 

My cup was already running over as I drove home to join Linda for dinner. She took me to the Yellow Porch Cafe on Thompson Lane (if any of you nashville people haven't been there, go.) And I told her about how overwhelmed I was by my co-workers generosity and we talked of other things; her family, my family, other things going on in our lives. Afterwards she asked if I would mind if we stopped by her church for a moment. Of course I didn't mind, it was just down the road. 

We pulled into the parking lot and she said I should come in with her. I didn't realize what was going on so I said I'd be fine waiting in the car. She insisted so I got out and as soon as I stepped around the car, I saw ladies going into the building...with gift bags in their hands. 

I began to weep. 

The moment I realized what she had done for me, I stood there in the Woodmont Hills parking lot and wept. I actually refused to go inside. 

"I can't, Linda. I can't go in there. It's too much. I don't deserve it."

And Linda took me in her arms and said, "Abby, you can do it. They love you." And she led me by the hand with tears still streaming down my face into a room filled with women and gifts. 

I don't know what kind of impression I made on those women, two I knew very well but most of whom I'd never met before, but I know that their love was special because it was poured out on a stranger. They only knew that Linda and Larry had taken me in and I was in need. So God led them to provide. Because their gifts were not baby clothes or diapers; their gifts were pots and pans, and towels, and a shower curtain, and a vacuum, and everything an empty apartment could possibly need. It was even color coordinated. Linda and her sister had set up a registry at Target and those women had bought it all. There was even a red electric tea kettle and a can opener shaped like a Toucan.

I cried the entire way through opening those gifts. I had to pause a few times to keep myself from totally breaking down but the magnitude of what had happened that day was too much for me. I was the least verbal I've ever been; all I could say was, "Thank you" and look at them and pray that they could see my appreciation better than I could express it. 

It took two cars to get all those presents back to Linda and Larry's house and three trips for me to move it to my apartment. And within days of that special night, I was gifted with a sofa and loveseat and a TV and dresser and a  crib--again, all from people I'd never met before. My empty apartment had been transformed into a home, a warm, welcoming place where I could cuddle my baby and know that our needs were provided for.