Vicky Umodu from Colton in California was in the process of moving into her new home. She was in urgent _______ of furniture but couldn’t afford to buy anything _______ or used. So she decided to search online for other options. She was _______ to find a lovely furniture set that was being given away. It looked hardly used. Vicky then contacted the owner of the furniture _______ and was more than blessed to have it.

Once she got it home, she started to _______ the furniture. But she noticed something a little _______ about one of the chairs. The cushion (坐垫) felt uneven. As she inspected the cushion, she _______ what she was feeling was perhaps a hot water bottle under the cushion cover.

But to her _______, she found dozens of envelopes full of money! Instead of keeping it, she right away _______ the money to the owner of the furniture. Much to her surprise, she later learned the furniture ________ the owner’s grandma who passed away last month and the owner had no ________ that his grandma saved money by ________ envelopes of money in furniture.

Vicky’s ________ turned into a double blessing. Not only did she find favorite furniture, but the owner of the furniture also gave her a(n) ________! He gave her extra cash to buy a new fridge. What a valuable ________ she is teaching her children and the world!

Lewis B. Smedes once said, “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” For years Tom Anderson’s life was withered up(枯萎) by the memory of his ________ in an adventure that ________ the death of one of his classmates. He and his wife ________ after six years of marriage. Then the news about Tom changed. His wife Betty came back; he ________ a fine position.

One day he told me what had changed his life, “I used to think nothing could ________ what I had done. The thought of my ________ would stop me in the middle of a smile. It put a ________ between my wife and me. Then I had an________ visit from the person I dreaded(恐惧)most to see - the mother of the college classmate who died. ‘Unless you forgive, you cannot love.’ She said, ‘And without love, life has no ________.’ She paused, and then said ________, ‘You are the one person who hasn’t forgiven Tom Anderson.’ I found there in her eye ________ to be the person I might have been if her boy had lived. For the first time in my life I felt ________ to love and be loved.”

Forgiveness is truly the ________ grace(慈悲)，through which we gain the freedom to learn from experience. But forgiving our shortcomings doesn’t mean ________ that they exist. On the contrary, it means facing them ________.

Our small hometown had a tradition in which the students at an elementary school put on a Tom Thumb Wedding, a mock (模拟) wedding event performed by kids. I was in the first grade. When the _______ were handed out that spring, I was _______ as a bridesmaid (伴娘).

Money was _______ then, as it remained throughout my _______, but my mother always found a way. My mom would work her job outside the home, take care of the housework and cooking, _______ all the demands of the family, and then sit down at the sewing machine to _______ the dress. While she had some sewing _______, it wasn’t something she did often, so there were _______ during the process. Yet I never heard her _______ about having to do it.

When the dress was ________, it looked just like the picture, and it was a wonder to me. I remember my happiness and ________ when putting it on for the big event. No________ dress since has ever made me feel like I did the night of the Tom Thumb Wedding all those years ago. It was as if a piece of my mother’s ________ was in every stitch (针脚).

Now I am a mom. And while I never put together a small formal dress for my daughters, I have stayed up nights laboring on similar projects ________ by love. I do it because that is what my mother gave me: the life lesson that it isn’t about the money you ________, but the love you give.