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A Christmas Past

In December of 1963, I was living 600 miles from family and the proud mother of a three month old son. My husband was in the Air Force and did not have any leave time coming, so it was decided that I would take my young son on a trip to meet his extended family. I notified the post office that I would be out of town for two weeks and to please hold my mail, since my husband was on duty at the base and his schedule varied quite a bit.

Since I definitely wanted to be home for Christmas, the plan was to arrive back on Sunday the 22nd.

It was customary to receive our Christmas presents by mail and I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of a pile of packages from three sets of grandparents and a half dozen aunts and uncles.

When Monday the 23rd arrived and we did not receive any mail, I thought, well, I asked them to hold my mail till the 23rd, so they probably just included the 23rd and we would get our presents tomorrow.

On Tuesday, Christmas Eve, we didn't get any mail either; I was devasted. How could we have Christmas without any presents? We didn't even get a Christmas card from anyone. Christmas Eve was really depressing, so my husband said that we would go out to eat Christmas Dinner at a nice restaurant to make up for the lack of presents.

Christmas Day arrived and after a joyless morning, we dressed up and went in search of a really special Christmas Dinner. Well, in a small town in 1963, there were no restaurants open. We didn't even have a McDonald's! There was absolutely no place to get anything to eat and we ended up returning home to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

My husband decided to try calling the post office, even though it was Christmas Day, and someone answered the phone. He explained about our situation and the postal employee told him to come to the back door of the post office and he would give us our mail. The mail carrier had mistakenly marked our mail to be held till after Christmas, assuming that I would be gone for the Holiday. So, we had our huge pile of presents on Christmas night.

You see in 1963, we had not accepted the one gift that we really needed.

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23

I had no concern at all about the presence of God in my life. My only concern was for the presents that people would give me. I didn't care that this was the day that we were to be celebrating the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who was born to be the sacrifice for my sin. I didn't give a moment's thought to the condition of my soul. I only lived for my pleasure. If I wanted to do or have something, I didn't care if it was sin or not. I had never been told that I was lost and on the way to hell.

When I was confronted with my lost condition in 1972, I asked God to forgive me, I repented of my sin and I asked Jesus to be the Lord and Savior of my life. My husband had made that decision two weeks before me and that three month old baby, who was now nine years old also accepted Christ a few months later.

Christmas has a whole new meaning to us ever since. Now we celebrate Jesus' birthday, we think of gifts that we can give to Him. We try to give to others in such a way that they will realize the gifts really came because of the love of Our Heavenly Father. We try to use Christmas as an opportunity to share that love with others.

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

All that we have comes from God and we owe Him our very lives. He loves us and wants to give us every good thing. He especially wants us to be able to spend eternity with Him. After Jesus was crucified , died, and was buried; He rose from the dead and He returned to heaven to prepare a place for us.

Thanks be to God, for His Awesome gift.

Thanks be to God for His Presence!!

Submitted on : 1-Dec-2005