A Christmas Mirror


A Christmas Mirror from the Vietnam team

Dearly Loved Family in Christ,

Who could really ask for more at Christmas than just to be able through our Father's love and mercy and grace in Christ to call you brothers and sisters.

Christmas, and rightly so, is a time for thoughts of family. As I mirror the years, from my earliest remembrance of especially joyful time for celebration, my attention returns quickly to these present days before Christmas, I realize I need to give thanks to God for the "things I didn't get" for Christmas.

I didn't really realize how poor we were until I reached my mature years. God blessed my parents to have seven sons and one daughter, and blessed us to have the parents He chose for us.

My remembrances are of a Christmas tree we chose and cut ourselves, the string of popcorn balls used to decorate it, there was no tree lights because we had but kerosene lanterns for night, and there was but one present for each one of us beneath the tree. My brothers and sister pooled our few pennies and nickels and dimes to buy a present for Dad and Mom. I thought we were rich because we had so much fun as a family.

It didn't seem strange to me, as I was growing up, to wear the clothes my older brothers outgrew. It was the natural thing to do in my boyhood mind not knowing a lesson I was learning. If I ever got anything new it was socks, though my mother was always darning socks when heels and toes began to show. New underwear when they started to become threadbare, and perhaps new shoes now and then because boys are awfully hard on them.

So, at the age 78, comes the dawn in my understanding that it is needful for me to thank God for the things I didn't get because it made me realize all the more how precious the few things were I did get. To this very day, I remember so very clearly a little boy named Teddy, happily pushing his only present - a little car - around the floor Christmas day.

Yes, Lord, I thank you with all my heart for the things I never did get. It helped to be quick to love and care for those who even had less than me. It helped to be a better missionary living among those in foreign nations who might not survive another day.

Yes, Lord, I thank you for my brothers and sisters whose lives are lived in Christ for others. They were gifts right from You to encourage and keep me going. Unto them, in Jesus's name, I say MERRY CHRISTMAS, Amen.

Theodore



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