The
older I get the earlier Christmas seems to appear every year and the more
sentimental I become about Christmas past. My memories during the holidays are
often whisked away to a time reminiscent of those cherished in old Norman Rockwell
paintings when life was more simple and carefree. I don’t have to look back too far however, to
find some of the most precious memories of my life. It was the Christmas of 2002 and readers please beware, I cannot tell this story without shedding a few tears.That Christmas was not extra special because of all the Christmas decorations, beautiful lavish gifts or gathering together with beloved family and friends. In fact, that specific year we had no Christmas tree or any decorations at all. We had no extravagant gifts and we were many, many hours away from any family or friends, however, the year 2002 will go down in history as one of the most precious Christmas memories of all time for me.
It all
began when my husband lost his job and then felt called to be the Pastor of a small church
in the foothills of the Ozarks in a small town in northern Arkansas. Our house in Iowa hadn’t sold yet but to provide for our family my
husband moved ahead of us to begin pastoring in August of 2002. My husband had just had surgery for his broken hip at the beginning of December and was still on crutches. Because of working on packing up our home in Iowa to move, it was just before Christmas that I and our
four small children were finally able to join him in the south. We moved into a small rental home with very little
money, no furniture and not much food as we were waiting until New Year’s to
receive our moving truck and most of our belongings from Iowa.
We truly
saw this as a time of faith building for our young family as we sought to use
every need as an opportunity to pray with our children and ask God for His
provision. Christmas was just days away and my husband and I knew we could not
afford presents for our kids or be able to buy the food to have the kind of
nice Christmas meal that we were all accustomed to. We prayed and asked God for food for our
Christmas meal and wood for our woodstove to keep us warm.
We
kept praying with the kids and knew God would provide as He had always done
before, but this time He chose to meet
our needs in a very unexpected way. On
Christmas Eve, our children who were 11, 7, 5 and 3 years old all received Walmart gift cards from some family members back up North. We were especially happy and thankful for
this because we had no Christmas gifts for them. Without us knowing, our oldest son took
charge and gathered his two young sisters to begin scouring the
grocery ads we had received in the mail. They each picked out which food they especially wanted for Christmas dinner and Josiah got busy cutting out the coupons and making a grocery list. Josiah, Elizabeth, Abigail and Andrew finally brought the list and coupons to show me what
they had all decided on but I didn’t have the heart to tell him we would not
have enough money to buy all of the food. Our oldest son Josiah
assured us that we did in fact have enough money because the kids had all agreed to use
their Christmas gift cards to buy our special Christmas dinner. As I saw the genuine selfless
expression of love from our kids, I was simply overcome with emotion.
To
hear that our children would rather give their gift money to us to buy food
instead of buying toys for themselves was overwhelming. What a blessing from
God to have kids who were willing to sacrifice for the good of our whole
family. They truly recognized that God was indeed providing money for our food through their own gifts they had received. I sobbed as I thanked the
children for their kind act of selflessness. We had fervently prayed and God had faithfully answered through such
unexpected means. We had
one of the nicest Christmas dinners ever that year served on a plastic patio table we
brought in from outside.
Although we were away from all of our extended family and our familiar surroundings with no Christmas décor at all, God blessed
us with so much more that year than we could have ever dreamed.
The
most beautiful blessings of the Christmas of 2002 were those intangible gifts we received
such as being reminded that God loves us more than we can ever comprehend and will
answer our prayers in ways we could never dream of. It was also so precious to realize that we
did not need all of that “Christmas” stuff to truly enjoy the genuine meaning
of Christmas anyway. We could never have experienced this kind of Christmas if we had remained in the comfortable setting of our former life in Iowa. God was showing us a special glimpse of His goodness through meeting our most basic needs.
On a
much grander scale, that Christmas we grasped the concept that even though we didn’t have earthly
gifts to give each other, were most thankful for the amazing gift that God had given to us. He sent His only Son Jesus to
save us all from our sin. Jesus left
heaven to be born on earth as a baby and willingly gave up His life, dying on
the cross so we could have eternal life. All we have to do is believe in Him
and confess our sins to be forgiven eternally.
I John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all our unrighteousness.”
