I got what looked like a catalog in the mail the other day. I was about to throw it away with the rest of the junk mail, when I noticed it wasn't quite the "gift catalog" it seemed. Instead of smiling models it was full pictures of ragged children in the third world. The cover advertised it as "gifts for the person who has everything." The catalog was full of gifts to those in need that you can give as a gift to someone you love. The gifts included such much-needed things as goats, blankets, immunizations, pre-natal care for poor people. It must have caught me at particularly awkward time, because I began to cry right there on my porch. I had come home from work tired and grumpy. Recently my life of isolation has mostly been alternating numbness and self-absorption. The looming chore of Christmas shopping was a only a joyless burden on our strained finances. Now my beloved niece and nephew who have plenty of toys will be getting wheelchairs for disabled kids in the third world for Christmas. Giving such gifts to those who have nothing is a wonderful way to break us out of the materialistic stupor into which we so easily fall.
Much thanks to World Vision for reminding me that the gift we are celebrating is Christ, the birth of redemption and unconditional love into our sad world. Why do I so easily forget Christ?
1 comment:
I already did.
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