Lynn knew this too well. But she also knew something else—the danger of being an adult. Sometimes you reached an age where you reached into your pocket and found nothing. Those dreams had been stored away in a shoe box and tucked in the corner of a crawl space somewhere. Many times, you didn’t have the time or the energy or the desire to go find that shoe box and dust it off and look inside.

Adulthood sometimes—many times—meant the shoe box was never found again.

Lynn thought of this not in terms of her life but in terms of Thomas and Sara. If there was anything she wanted from here on out, regardless of what would happen today and tomorrow and the next, it would be for them not to lose their hopes and their dreams.

And for that not to happen, she had to be an example. She needed to learn how to dream again, and that started by gaining her footing again and swallowing her pride and taking it a day at a time.

It’s Christmas day and Thomas and Sara and I deserve a nice, home-cooked meal.

So she told them to get into the car, and then she prayed that it would start. Thankfully, the Maxima wasn’t finished just yet. She told them that they were going out for their Christmas dinner. For a few brief moments Thomas and Sara seemed mortified. Sara asked if they were heading over to Uncle Jesse’s house. She told her no, that she wouldn’t do that to them.

As she drove, Lynn thought about the reaction that Thomas had to the basketball shoes. In that moment he’d been her little boy again, not this tall, teenage boy living with her. Thomas had always had a gentle spirit, and even though he still carried it with him, she couldn’t forget that he was a fifteen-year-old. His display of raw emotion told her that she’d overreacted about the missing presents. She’d been angry and vocal about that with God but He’d shown her who was boss and what really mattered. Thomas didn’t care about the gifts from a list. He was simply glad to be there, with her and Sara.

God does that quite often in ways I don’t really like.

It was shortly after noon and she had made her decision.

Pride was a hard thing to swallow sometimes.

So was thankfulness in the wake of a raging storm.

She didn’t tell the kids where they were going. They were just going. It was an address downtown and it would surely be busy. There would be others like her, even more broken and bruised, waiting just like they would be for a warm meal. For the simple creature comforts of something that tasted good and filled the stomach and the soul.

Just a meal.

Nobody was too good to be standing in that line. Not her. Not Thomas or Sara. Not anyone.

They parked close and walked on the sidewalk as she locked arms with her two angels and knew that it would get better.