Love in Action

 

"Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas." Dale Evans Rogers

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This song is from Amy Grants Christmas album, “Christmas To Remember” While not a typical christmas song, it is a beautiful song about Our Savior’s love.

"Christmas Lullaby (I Will Lead You Home)"

written and performed by Amy Grant

Christmas Lullaby (I Will Lead You Home) - YouTube

Click on this, then click on the youtube link

Are you far away from home

This dark and lonely night

Tell me what best would help

To ease your mind

Someone to give

Direction for this unfamiliar road

Or one who says, "Follow me and

I will lead you home."

How beautiful

How precious

The Savior of old

To love so

Completely

The loneliest soul

how gently

how tenderly

He says to one and all,

"Child you can follow Me

And I will lead you home

Trust Me and follow Me

And I will lead you home."

Be near me, Lord Jesus

I ask Thee to stay

Close by me forever

And love me I pray

Bless all the dear children

In Thy tender care

And take us to Heaven

To live with Thee there

Take us to Heaven

To live with Thee there

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(A word of warning:  Today's blog deals with grieving and loss at Christmastime)

RECIPE

Chocolate Orange Fudge

Fudge is a holiday favorite throughout the south––some version are creamy and others are granular. This recipe makes a deliciously dense, grainy fudge.

2 c. fine granulated sugar

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped

2/3 c. heavy cream

1/4 t. salt

1 t. butter (unsalted)

1/3 c. finely chopped candies orange peel

Butter an 8-inch square glass baking dish. In a heavy 2-quart saucepan combine sugar, chocolate, cream, and salt and cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly, until sugar is dissolved and chocolate is melted. Cook mixture, without stirring until a candy thermometer registers 238EF. Remove pan from heat and add butter and orange peel, swirling pan without stirring. Cool fudge 5 minutes and beat with a wooden spoon until it just begins to lose its gloss (do not overbeat or fudge will seize). Pour fudge immediately into baking dish and cool 15 minutes, or until it begins to harden. Cut fudge into 1-inch squares and cool completely. Makes about 1 lb.

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Make Christmas Special

My daughter, Gina, decided to make gingerbread houses with her 2 young sons. She bought kits at the craft store and came home excited to make a fun memory. It didn’t turn out quite as she hoped. The gingerbread pieces from the kits were broken. They couldn’t stick them together, not even with the frosting. The house segments ended up in the garbage, the boys were eating the candy and disaster reigned (at least according to Gina). Looking at the scene in pictures, I realized Gina missed something. The boys had plates which they fingerpainted Christmas trees on with frosting and then stuck candy on. What a great project! I’d love to hang one of those masterpieces on my refrigerator! I imagined what it would have been like if I could have been watching. It wouldn’t have made the mess less or changed anything, but it would have been shared. As we make memories this year, let’s remember to share them. Use SKYPE or FaceTime or Messenger and make some cookies together. Sing Carols. Drink a cup of hot chocolate together with all of your cousins, and it will become the “Remember the year that we had hot chocolate and doughnuts together for Christmas? That was fun”. The most special part of Christmas is the love we share.

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I have to start this by saying that I am not a social worker. I don’t have any kind of college degree to back up what I’m about to say, but I do have 20 years of experience (through hospice work) of dealing with death and grieving. Christmas is not a time of joy for everyone. Perhaps their Christmas memories are of poverty, of abuse or loneliness. Perhaps their current memories are filled with pain. I have a good friend who lost her adult son to suicide this week, her heart is broken; and a niece who lost her much loved stepfather in November. Her mother and father have also passed in the last four years. Her best friend died unexpectedly 2 days ago. She feels so alone. What can we do? How can we help?

1). Say you’re sorry for their loss – it won’t change anything, but it lets them know someone cares.

2). Use their loved one’s name when you talk about them. Those people are very real to them, and they need to know that their loved one is remembered. It can be uncomfortable. You might not know what to say. You might be afraid to say the wrong thing. Well, you don’t have to say anything, just listen if they need to talk.

3. If you’re the one who is grieving, go ahead. Don’t let anyone tell you what you can or cannot do or think. Grief is intensely personal and it takes as long as it takes to come to terms with it. If, after 6 months, your grief is still as intense as when the loss occurred, then it might be time to get help.

4. Share a positive memory with them.

5 Encourage them to drink plenty of water and get exercise when possible. Volunteer to go for walks with them or to the gym.

5. Show Christlike love

Yesterday’s “assignment” to myself was to make a promise to Christ. I spent the day thinking of all the things I could promise Him. I did some real soul searching and made my promise. It will not be an easy one to keep, but it will be do-able. My challenge for tomorrow is to do charitable acts: to let someone in front of me in the checkout line, to do something special for Dean without him noticing, like putting away his clean laundry, or iron his shirts, or match his socks. That one will be a little more tricky because he has some socks that I can’t tell the difference between. He usually matches his own because I usually guess wrong and match the brown and green ones together.

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"Until the end of time"
by Bob Perks

 

Off in the distance the old record player is stacked with the sounds of the very best of days gone by. One by one the lp's drop, skid into place, and the sounds of Christmas fill the room.

Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme and Ella Fitzgerald take turns serenading the old man as he opens the box marked "Christmas."

"It's not the same, but it is the best it can be considering."

"Considering what?" I ask.

"Considering the fact that my love is not with me," he says quietly.

"Have yourself a merry little Christmas" he sings above the scratchy sounds of Perry Como.

If records are well before your time you would not appreciate this. But there are many who believe the purest sounds come from a 33 1/3 lp even with the scratches. You learn to tune them out.

He pulls the box a little closer, then resting his hands on it for a moment, almost like the laying on of hands at a prayer meeting, he pauses, then unties the string.

It appears that the string he used, like his dreams, is old, a little frayed and unraveled, but still serving a greater purpose.

Lifting the lid, he stops once more and gazes into the box.

"Ah, Christmas!" he says.

Like a surgeon, he places his hands gently, slowly into the box before him and carefully removes the contents placing it on the table.

Whatever this treasure may be, it is wrapped in plain brown paper.

Moving it side to side, he pulls and tugs until it is revealed.

"This, this is Christmas," he says.

Then lifting it up slightly above his head he looks underneath as if searching for something.

It is a classic old mantel clock.

"Oh, my friend that is beautiful!" I said. "Mahogany wood?"

He doesn't answer me.

He sat there lost in a place and time perhaps when you and I did not even exist. He held the clock, no embraced it like he was holding the most precious thing on earth.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I love this clock. It means the world to me," he said.

"I can tell," I reply. He smiles and glances back at me.

"This is Christmas," he whispers.

"May I ask why? Why do you see it as Christmas?"

He then went on to explain.

His wife had been very ill for some time. In the spring of that year she could no longer walk. By fall, her interest in things around her dimmed. Then with the approach of Christmas she seemed to rise above it all. Her husband thought that this was a sure sign that she would recover.

Just before Christmas she told him to go to the local store. He was to ask for the "Christmas Box" with her name on it. She made him promise not to open it nor ask what was inside.

He did and as requested he returned with the box in hand.

"Place it under the bed," she asked of him.

It was on that Christmas Eve that she presented him with the box. Now weakened from the cold dampness and the return of her symptoms, she could hardly make it through the night.

"Open it," she told him.

He untied the string, unwrapped the contents and read the small card inside.

"This is a symbol of my love for you...forever until the end of time."

She reached under the clock and removed a small key. Opening the front glass covering the face of the clock, she took the key and began to wind it. With all her strength she could only manage to turn the key a few times.

She carefully closed the door and laid her head on his shoulder.

"We fell asleep that way," he said to me.

The next morning, Christmas day, she was gone.

"With all her strength she could not manage to wind the clock completely.

It stopped just minutes short of midnight on Christmas day," he said.

Then turning toward where I was standing he said, "She loved me until the end of time, her time. I have never wound that clock again.

It holds Christmas, our last Christmas inside."

We sat together until the last record dropped.

How appropriate it was.

"I'm dreamin' tonight of a place I love,
Even more then I usually do
And although I know it's a long road back
I promise you. I'll be home for Christmas ..."

May the most valuable gift you receive this Christmas be found not in a box, but in the hearts of those you love..."until the end of time."

"I believe in you!"
Bob Perks copyright 2007

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