Every year at Christmas, my friend Ira and I get together to assemble Christmas stockings for the orphans at two nearby orphanages. It gives us a lot of happiness to do this, as both of us are far from our families at Christmas.
We had set up a little assembly line in my living room and just finished putting various toiletry items, a hand towel, Christmas candies, etc., in the last of the stockings—one for each orphan.
Looking around, we noticed there was exactly one of each item left.
“You can take them,” Ira said.
“Not me!” I laughed. “I don’t need any of it.”
So the extra materials were left in a little pile on the coffee table.
We finished bundling the stockings into boxes and loaded them into Ira’s car so she could deliver them to the orphanages.
“There’ll be a lot of happy children there, for sure,” I smiled as I waved goodbye.
That evening, after all the stockings had been delivered, a staff member at one of the orphanages messaged me: “Just letting you know that we’ve received a new boy since you were here last.”
Oh, no! I thought. They’ll be one stocking short! Poor kid!
I turned and saw the leftover items on the table.
Sure enough, there was exactly one of each left! I quickly assembled one more stocking and sent it off to the orphanage.
That’s amazing! I thought. Jesus knew all along about the new orphan boy. He was just waiting for us to find out!
God was so concerned about that one newlyorphaned boy that He made sure he wasn’t forgotten at Christmas.—And He loves each one of us so much that He sent His only Son to save us.
That’s what Christmas is all about!—Not the gifts or the festivities, or even what we can do for others. Christmas is all about God’s love, a love that is so personal that not one person is forgotten, not even an orphan.