The Perfect Gift

Christmas is the day when Christians all over the world celebrate the time when God "...sent his son born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons" (Galatians 4:4-5).

"Let Nothing You Dismay" is the title of a Christmas story by Ruth Harden. In it an absent-minded older woman realizes with horror that she has switched two Christmas gifts and sent them to the wrong people. The thick, woolen socks she had made for her poor friend, Hilda, have been sent to her fashionable grand-daughter instead. The lovely lace and satin nightgown that she had bought for her grand-daughter has been sent to her friend Hilda! The woman is mortified because Hilda is poor, plain, simple, unadorned. Such a lovely nightgown might seem a mockery of Hilda’s plainness.

But a few days after Christmas, the woman received two letters. The first was from her grand-daughter who thanked her for the trendy ski socks: "They are one of a kind and I will have the only pair on the slopes." The second was from an ecstatically grateful Hilda. "No one," she said "has ever thought to give me something so beautiful." Hilda wrote that she put on the nightgown and danced across her rough, wooden floor and for the first time in her life she felt pretty. As it turned out, the gifts were perfect!

Christmas is the celebration of God’s having given "the perfect gift." Because of the gift of the Christ Child, we can now know God as never before and we are enabled to live as sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father. The gift God gave at Bethlehem is The Perfect Gift because, 2,000 years later, it still shapes and beautifies lives and families.

In 2003, I wish for you and your family the "Gift of Christmas" that will have you, like Hilda, dancing in ecstasy---even if the floors of your life are pretty rough at this time. Merry Christmas!