REFLECTIONS

Gift from the Heart

Mom sat on the sofa in my grandparent’s living room that Christmas Eve. It was her usual station when we opened gifts. I sat on the floor near her feet watching as she opened my gift to her. I felt a little ashamed it was not more than it was. To make the gift look more important, I placed it in an empty Kleenex box, and stuffed the box with tissue so it wouldn’t jiggle. Then I wrapped it. My gift was only a Christmas card signed with “I love you.” I just couldn’t think of anything else to give.

In previous years Daddy had purchased the gift for me to give her. But at age ten I felt grown enough to buy the gift myself, so I told him that I would take care of it. I thought I could find something nice, but as Christmas drew near, the pressure to find just the right thing began to mount. Time ran out and a card was the only idea that came to mind. It wasn’t lavish, but I knew it was a gift from my heart. Mom knew it too. “This is the best gift I’ve ever received,” she said with a look of love I will always remember.

I wonder if those first Christmas gifts from the Magi were chosen because nothing else came to mind. After all gold, frankincense, and myrrh do not seem like gifts for a baby, even a baby king. While their gifts were lavish for the time, they may have felt them small when they gazed upon the newborn king. But large or small, there is little doubt that their gifts came from their hearts.

But the gift I gave to Mom and the gifts Magi brought to the Christ child do not compare to the gift we received on that first Christmas Day. It was a baby—magnificent in simplicity, breathtaking in majesty, and incomprehensible in nature. God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son[1]. He gave us the Light of the world. Through his gift we have life everlasting. It was a gift from the heart of God.

And it is the best gift we’ve ever received.

You are the light of the world,

Richard +

www.reflectingthesavior.org

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