Christian Living

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The spirit of Christmas

It is December the 22nd and I am rushing around town looking for an inflatable travel pillow for my grandfathers stocking. My dog had annoyingly chewed the first one just last night, needless to say in the middle of the winter it’s hard to find a travel cushion, every shop I go into seems to give me the same response “We don’t stock them at this time of year” as I wander up and down the aisles in each shop I am adding more and more to my basket, things that if I wasn’t in town I wouldn’t be buying but the 21st century Christmas bug has nipped me and amongst all the other shoppers instead of thinking “this isn’t what Christmas is about” I think “Oh mum would like that, but now I better get something else for dad so I have spent the same on both of them” It is only on reflection I realise how ridiculous this is… Anyway back to the travel cushion, I am now in my fifth shop, I manage to find a shop assistant who is available after explaining the situation to her she says she is pretty sure they don’t have any but will look out back just in case, after about 10 minutes she returns and says “I’m really sorry we didn’t have any…” Pause, she brings her hand from behind her back “Apart from this one!” I swear I could have kissed the women! Relief swept through my veins I must have said thank you about a million times.

I paid for the cushion and left the shop, it was freezing outside so I put all my bags on the nearest bench to do my coat up. I don’t know why it caught my eye but it did, there on the other side of the street was a homeless man huddled up in blankets looking absolutely terrible, I don’t think I have ever seen such a sad sight in all my life. In that moment I wanted to return all my shopping and give him the money, I wanted to find him a family, find him a life find him someone to love but it disgusts me to say I, as everybody else did ignored his plight and did nothing, I pulled my coat up round my neck gathered my shopping and left. It haunts me to this day that I did nothing, in that moment I really had lost the true meaning of Christmas, I was the inn keeper that said “no room”.

I have prayed so hard for that moment since, I have prayed that God will protect that man and that God will help me be a better person.

It is so easy these days to get caught up in what society expects from us, Nice house, Nice car, Good job but think about, I mean really think about it, God gave us ten commandments, ten simple rules to live our lives by and I bet even the best of you break them daily, as hard as we try in today’s society it is so hard to honestly stick with them. Can you imagine if those commandments had been written today? “Thou shall always out do your neighbour” “Thou shall always feel fat and make it your goal to be a size 0” “Thou shall get drunk and sleep with as many people as you can” “Thou shall spend more time working then spending time with your family” Scary isn’t it?

The thing is we blame a lot on society but we are society, we as individuals make up society so if we each improve ourselves society will improve, see my point? We cannot continue to blame things on a society that we contribute too. I am ashamed of the day I turned my back on that man but I have learnt from it and have improved as a person since then, maybe if we all improve a little things will start looking up. Do you not wish that we could be proud of our society instead of bring ashamed of it? Like I say… just a thought.

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