Free A Treasury of Christmas Miracles by Karen Kingsbury Page B

believe he intended to rob me, and then kill me and Laura,” Cara told her friend later. “And by some Christmas miracle,
     God directed two children who looked just like mine to lead me back to safety while my children were inside the apartment
     the whole time. It must be a miracle because things like that don’t just happen.”

Unexpected
Christmas
Package
    S cott and Julianne were sixteen when they met while attending high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan. That day the blonde, blue-eyed
     teenager was running late for class. When she walked into Scott’s homeroom he pretended to faint and fell off his chair onto
     the floor.
    If Scott’s introductory act did not win Julie’s heart, it definitely caught her attention. For the next few years until graduation
     the two were an item, attending dances together and building a very special kind of friendship.
    “One day you’ll be wearing my ring, Julie,” Scott would tell her. “And then you’ll be mine forever.”
    Julianne would laugh the way only a teenage girl can and bow her head bashfully. “Oh, Scott! That’s such a long way off.”
    But after high school Scott began commuting by bus to a job at a meatpacking plant some distance from his home and the couple
     lost track of each other. For two years they neither saw nor heard from each other.
    Then, shortly after her twentieth birthday, Julianne was tidying her parents’ house when the phone rang.
    “I still say you’ll wear my ring one day, Julie,” the caller said.
    “Scott Tschirgi!” She could hardly believe he had called after such a long time. “I thought you forgot about me.”
    Scott began his courtship by passing by Julie’s house each night and serenading her with his harmonica. Julie was thrilled
     with his renewed interest and almost overnight the relationship between them grew until they knew they could never be apart.
     A year later, on February 24, Scott made good on his promise and placed a small gold band on Julie’s hand in a wedding ceremony
     attended by dozens of friends and family.
    “This isn’t the ring I want you to wear,” Scott told Julie shortly before the wedding date. “But it will have to do until
     I can afford to buy you the one you’ll wear forever.”
    Two years later, Julie’s mother and her best friend died in a single-car accident. After the funeral, Julie’s father tearfully
     approached Julie and Scott. In his hand was the wedding ring worn by Julie’s mother for three decades. “She told me once if
     anything ever happened to her she wanted you to have it.”
    Julie took the ring and knew it would always be one of her most prized possessions. A piece of the mother she’d loved and
     lost.
    Later that year, a week before Christmas, Julie and Scott went to a jewelry store in downtown Ann Arbor and had the precious
     ring engraved. Julie would wear it in place of the smaller ring Scott had bought for their wedding.
    “It’s the perfect symbol of love,” Scott told her as they watched the ring being engraved. “Her love to you, and our love
     to each other.”
    The white-gold wedding band was nearly half an inch wide and the jeweler was able to engrave it with their initials and wedding
     date; the inside of the ring read: JAT-SMT-2-24-68.
    “Now and forever this ring will be a reminder to you that I’ve loved you since the first day I saw you, Julie,” Scott told
     her as he placed it on her finger that afternoon. “And I’ll love you till the day I die.”
    The marriage between Scott and Julie Tschirgi was everything they dreamed it would be. Two years later their son, Mike, was
     born followed by a daughter, Dena, and after that another daughter, Tara. The family was close-knit, spending weekends and
     afternoons camping and fishing the lakes in their area.
    Then, one summer, the Tschirgi family went fishing at Half Moon Lake, less than an hour from Ann Arbor. It was a remote lake
     with a circumference of several miles, and it was a Tschirgi