The True Meaning of Christmas
People get so wrapped up with Christmas every year. They want to have the biggest tree, buy the best gifts, receiving the best gifts, decorate their house to look like a holiday card and so on and so forth, that they forget what it's all about.I really don't get in to Christmas, only because it's so commercial. I will pick up a few gifts for a few select people, only for the tradition of it. For example Boris (my very handsome godson), I want him and his sister to have a little something special because I love them and it's important for me to have that something special and a special memory to go with it, and that's about it. The house doesn't get decorated, I don't bake a ton of sweets, I don't even put up a tree, but I also wouldn't rain on someone else's Christmas parade either.
Today, Jeff took our annual haul of donations to the Salvation Army. We give to them because they give away those items to people in need, and not sell them. While Jeff was unloading, a man showed up at the S.A. rehab center. He had just been released from prison, was on the streets for a couple of days, wearing dirty clothes and hadn't eaten. He showed up to see if he could get assistance with buying a bus ticket to Polk County. He had been enrolled in a work rehabilitation program, but had no means to get there.
Jeff overheard him and offered him some clean clothes from the bags and got him something to eat. After, Jeff took him to the United Way to see about getting him the bus fair. At U.W., the connected him with Catholic Charities who said they would purchase the ticket. Jeff and a U.W. employee took the man to get the ticket. With his rehabilitation paperwork, clean clothes on his back and a full tummy, this man was on his way to a second chance.
This is Jeff, not only at Christmas time, but all the time and this is how we should always be to one another. We shouldn't let what we look like, what we own and who we know define us, it should be what's in our hearts and what we do for others.
I love my husband, but today, I love him even more. I'm so blessed to have him in my life and I can only hope that someday I could measure up to him.
