Being a person who enjoys looking at Christmas decorations but disdains the act of decorating itself, my contribution each year is to retrieve our boxes of decorations from the attic as well as the Christmas tree. This year, as I staggered down the stairs with one of boxes, I was reminded of a previous year when the attic expedition didn’t go quite smoothly. Before I tell the tale, I should set the scene. The boxes that we keep our decorations in are quite large and if I hold them at my waist I can barely see over the top. In addition, we have some very steep steps. If you ever need to climb our stairs, you might want to bring some climbing equipment. At any rate, I was backing down the stairs with a giant box of decorations in front of me when the heel of my foot got caught on the cuff of my pants and I tumbled backwards down the stairs. As I was falling, my first thought was not about getting hurt… the only thing I thought of was the decorations. As I fell backwards, time seemed to slow down and I somehow managed to get my feet up in the air and catch the box with them. My head hit the floor and I crumpled to a heap at the base of the stairs with my feet above my head, box on top of them but the box was none the worse for wear. Unfortunately, as I tried to stand up and pulled my feet in, the box came the rest of the way down the stairs and a corner of it hit me in the eye. All in all, it was a rough start to decorating but at least we have a funny story to tell now.

It did make me wonder about that box. Why did I care so much about that box? The fact is that I didn’t really care about the box at all. I didn’t care about the box or the decorations inside. Marcia did. Marcia loves those decorations and loves decorating. Since I love Marcia, that means that those decorations are important to me too. This brings me to the main point… allowing injury to myself demonstrated my love for my wife. I need to be able to go even further in demonstrating my love for my Savior, Jesus Christ. Neither fear, injury, embarrassment, nor expense should prevent me from sharing my love for Christ with His children. Christmas, in particular, is a time when we celebrate giving, and having received the greatest gift of all, it should be an easy thing to be generous to others not necessarily with money and “things” but with our time, hearts, and spirit.

1 John 5
¹Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. ²By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. ³For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. ⁴For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. ⁵Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?