blessings of my heart...

if you know my husband brian at all,
even just the littlest tiniest bit, you know..

he has an open heart that reaches and feels for everyone that comes across his path.
he gives freely, and it is in his nature to love and genuinely care for complete strangers.
he "has a heart for people" as his mother always says.
which is the icing on the cake in my eyes.

it didn't take me long to figure out that he passed that most precious gift, that few people truly poses, onto his son.
levi is a handful.
there is no doubt or question about that fact.

but that boy loves like nothing else....

and the perfect example of his free giving heart was shown to me this morning so quick that it brought tears to my eyes.

the joy fm...
which is a local christian radio station, has been talking about their upcoming mission trip to orphanages in peru. they have been working on a shoe drive for the past couple weeks, and we always hear about how they were wanting to collect shoes. the other week levi was listening and asked me "why they wanted shoes for?" and i explained to him that some children don't have mommies and daddies to love and care for them, and they need people to help give them some of the necessities of life. i honestly didn't think much more about it after that.

but this morning, levi heard them say that they would be in sarasota. he understood fully without my explaining that he lives in sarasota and he could help give children shoes. he was very upset not understanding how they could go outside and play without shoes on their feet.


his face lit up as he realized that he could in fact help! and he asked if he could go and give someone shoes.
i promised him that after school he and alivia could go down and each pick out a pair and donate them.

when we got there, is where i lost the whole point with him for a little bit.
i think that he thought

1. he could give the shoes to the actual child that was in need of them.
2. that he wouldn't be picking out "a cool pair" that he didn't already own.

however, i quickly squashed the thought when i explained to him that
jesus has a loving, giving heart. he doesn't ever think about himself, but always thinks about others.
i told him that i knew it was hard for him to give up cool spiderman shoes, but that he has a mommy and daddy that love him more then the world. i told him how proud i was of him for wanting to help someone all on his own, and how happy it was making jesus to see him do it.

he quickly smiled up and me and said "yea, jesus will be happy, and i will too" and placed those super cool spiderman shoes in the box.

on the way home we talked about giving freely, and loving to the fullest these children that we have never seen who don't have mommies and daddies yet. and another tear ran down my cheek when alivia told me in her soft spoken voice that "you can be their mommy too, mommy".


(pardon the mess of our clothing...
alivia had come from ballet and levi had gym clothes on from school) :P