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Throughout the past twelve months our family’s walk has not been alone. To the contrary, it has been with a community: Our Prosper Family.  

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The unexpected and unimaginable happens. But just for this brief moment, try to imagine it happening in your own home… to your own family…

You have just experienced an unspeakable tragedy. One you’d think you could never again open your door. Then imagine finding a jar filled to the brim with coins placed on your doorstep. The Mason jar is wrapped in Christmas ribbons with a note attached from a family you’ll never know but who knows you and your story. They chose you to pray over each day and place a coin in the jar. 

This family knows your circumstances and they hurt right alongside you.  They don’t want to be identified and never will be. In fact, they do this every year.  You’ve come to learn of others in the community who have found this jar placed anonymously on their front porch in dark seasons.   

Imagine a mom whom you’ve never met.  She’d just dropped her kids at school and heard the terrible news.  It’s still dark and it’s raining. She sits alone in her car weeping uncontrollably. She prays aloud and begins writing down a prayer over your family.  She doesn’t even know you, but in the coming weeks her family will invite yours to dinner and present the prayer poem. 

Imagine a minister, one of several you’ve never met. You sense in some way they’ve known you all your life waiting for this very moment, to come into your home and into your family’s life to help sustain you when you could never fathom walking another step.  He wants to invite you to his church because you are hurting deeply.

Imagine a church, one of several who will love on and pray over your family.  This church is not a building but rather a community of faith-filled individuals who love you like Jesus, before you even open the door.  This church welcomes you and your family like the prodigal son of the Bible. They invite you in and provide a feast of not only a meal but more lasting, of love and unequivocal acceptance.  Peace beyond understanding.

Imagine neighbors, many whom you have never met.  These neighbors lavish your family with love and sincere care. They put together a food train. This “Food Train” is one of those like you park beside and shut off the engine on First Street past Coleman.  It’s going to be there for a long time.  Our “Food Train” meant full meals delivered and stored in a cooler on our front porch for over two months. 

Imagine going away for a few days and returning to a fully lit house with Christmas decorations installed by someone you may have never met and may never meet.  How would you feel if you had neighbors call and shortly arrive with rakes, trimmers, yard bags, and an eagerness to wash out your rain gutters? 

Imagine what it would be like to live in a community such as this.  You can stop imagining. This community actually exists. Prosper, Texas.

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The experiences we have had in the past year are testimony not only to what can be when a community loves on each other, but one that confirms what our youth can do by that very same example. 

We are confident our son resides eternally with our Heavenly Father and that we’ll have a great reunion one day soon. In the meantime, we listen, observe, and share in transparency so hopefully others may gain insight, hope, and encouragement. Mostly, we pray the words we write or say aloud may bring peace and a seeking for a relationship with the perfect peace maker. Jesus Christ.

Our family wants to humbly say “Thanks, Prosper”. May God bless you each and your families this year as well as in the years to come. – The Speeds