A Christmas Blessing

I've been fighting with my gas range for about 12+ months.  My side slowly losing ground.  After battles that have been growing in length over the past 3 months, it has finally won the fight and refuses to light the oven at all.  The stove is about 18 years old and I know I should just give up hope that I can salvage it.  I spoke with a reliable repairman who has sold and serviced our appliances for the past 28 years.  He told me that if he could even find the parts, it would be expensive to repair it...to the tune of $175-$275 plus labor depending on what was wrong and even then he couldn't guarantee that it would fix the problem.  Very disappointing.  The very last thing we needed this Christmas was another major expense.
But if we were going to have Christmas dinner, something had to be done.  We went shopping to see just how much a new gas range would set us back...yikes!  As we looked at one of the major stores in the area, the salesman asked us about our reason for this major purchase so close to the holidays...was it a gift?  We explained and he told us that he had been a repairman and had fixed lots of stoves with "symptoms" just like ours.  He gave us the number for the parts distributor and told us what to order.  About $75.  The part came in 2 days.  I had it installed within 20 minutes of it hitting the porch!  I told the girls to pray and I held my breath as I turned the knob.  Voila!  The oven lit in a very short time and we were back in business! 
I know that the man who helped us works on commission and forfeited what he would have made on our purchase.  I called to thank him and let him know that we will seek him out when we reach a point where we need to make an appliance purchase.
I'm saying a prayer of thanks for this man and his generous heart at this time of year when everyone could use a few extra dollars.  What a huge blessing this stranger was to us this holiday season!

Again, God bless us every one!