On a day before Christmas in 2018, Jim and I were planning to deliver plates of treats to the closest of our friends that evening and, as I was waking up that morning, into my mind came a scene I had witnessed at our ward party in September. We had a pancake breakfast outside at the Stake Centre pavillion and for a treat I took a jar of chokecherry syrup. Towards the end of the breakfast, I looked to where they were serving and saw Patrick Roach shaking the empty jar trying to get the very last drop of that syrup onto his pancake as if he would like to wring the jar. It made me laugh; I thought he must love chokecherry syrup very much.
We had at that time before Christmas, three very small jars of chokecherry syrup in the pantry. I had intended them to be jelly but they had refused to jell. I asked what he wanted to do with them since he is the one who loves chokecherry and he had asked for jelly. He said he thought I should empty the jars and cook it over. I thought about it, but knew if I was going to do jelly again, I would just start from scratch with chokecherry juice. I understood Jim's opinion since he had syrup already and wanted some jelly. I subsequently made new jelly and those small jars just sat there taking room in the pantry.
As I woke up that December morning with that vision of Patrick Roach in my head, it seemed like a sign. I decided that I could give him those jars to Patrick Roach. So, when I got up, I tied some curly red and green ribbon around the lid of each jar and stuck a Christmas sticker on top. Then I bagged them and added them to the collection of Christmas cookies we were taking out that night. It was dark when I rang the Roach's doorbell. When Tekarra came to the door, I held out the bag and said I had come to give it to Patrick. She called him and then looked into the bag. Her mouth fell open when she saw what was in there. With round eyes, she asked in wonderment, "How did you know?"
She told me that Patrick had lost his job two years before and was having difficulty finding another. In addition, he had a serious helath problem and had just received some troubling news about it. As he and Tekarra drove home from the doctor's appointment, he had said, "For Christmas, all I want is chokecherry syrup." She tried to find some but it is not to be had commercially. She tried at least one friend whom she knew made it at home, but her friend had none. She went ot the grocery store to at least look. The closest thing she found was raspberry syrup, so she bought a jar. Patrick looked at it sadly and thanked her for trying, but raspberry was just not the same.
That was what she meant when she said, "How did you know?" I had to reply to her that I knew nothing about their situation, but God did and He also knew I had those three jars of syrup. He told me Patrick needed that syrup in a way I could understand. I said, "Patrick can be certain that God knows and loves him."
Tekarra has since told this story in Sunday School in our ward, once at a Stake Relief Society event, and at Good Sam's in Raymond when I was there for our Relief Society social this year. The Roaches consider this their Christmas miracle and revisit the story each Christmas. I take no credit at all for my part in it. Christmas is a time of miracles.
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