The Truth of What Christmas is Sometimes About

 

The Extra Electric Train
A Christmas Memory

by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson

Though money didn't flow as freely as the rain that winter, my parents worked with joyful anticipation to give my brother and me a Christmas present we would never forget. They scrimped for months and then spent more than they could probably afford for a Marx electric train.

Then the day before Christmas, a cousin stationed at a nearby military base pulled into the driveway. Opening the trunk of his car he lifted out a large heavy box. My brother and I could hardly wait to see what it was. On Christmas morning we opened it first. Eagerly we unwrapped an expensive new electric train set. Wow! You had to pull us down off the ceiling. A Lionel train, too! Then we opened the presents from our parents--another electric train. Ho hum. And not nearly as extravagant as the one from our cousin. Guess whose we played with most?

Mom and Dad were hurt. The outlay for an unmarried Air Force lieutenant was nothing compared to the sacrifice my parents had made. But all we saw was the glamour of an expensive train. We counted our parents' gift as merely a nice accessory.

Our heavenly Father spends many a disappointing Christmas. Amidst the glittering ornaments and flashing Christmas lights, the hurry and hustle of shopping and wrapping and family get-togethers, parties and presents, trees and turkeys--who really cares about His gift? What gets more attention from us: our Father's gift of life in Jesus Christ or the quickly-wrapped department store gifts from our cousins?

Thank you, Father, for Jesus. Thank you for the abundant life that we, His disciples, can enjoy now. Thank you for sending us a most expensive gift--your own life. Thank you!

For this an other stories, please visit: The Extra Electric Train: A Christmas Memory - Christian Articles Archive

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As children, we sometimes do not appreciate the sacrifices that our parents make for us. Christmas can be a painful holiday for those families that do not have much to give to their children that day.

This family saved to give their own something that they couldn't afford. And the children had not appreciated the sacrifice, because at the time, they couldn't.

The greatest tragedy though is not that children don't get what they want. Nor even in getting what they want.

The tragedy is this:

It is the fact that we parents and grandparents do not give them what they most need. And that is the gift of helping them learn what the 25th of December is really all about. That God already gave us the greatest gift we could ever have. No wrapped gift under the tree will compare. No matter how expensive. No matter what is sacrificed in giving it, if we leave Jesus out. The truth is:

He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. John 1:10

The Christmas Season is a beautiful time of the year. But it is nothing if it does not fully include what it is all about. Because without Jesus, we would not have any celebration at all.

Thank you for coming by today, Friends. May you have a peace filled day.