Letter To The Editor – Focus On Christ During The Holiday Season

To the Editor:
Two things drive me crazy during this season: the focus on the secular and (ashamedly) the never ending requests for donations. The latter changed Saturday when I visited my sister. She is schizophrenic and in a nursing home. She has been crazy for 51 of her 69 years, yet she is a better Christian than I could ever be. She had one of those little plastic wrapped Kleenex packages. This was a gift from the Salvation Army. She was so excited that they came to visit her and gave her a gift. Then she gave it to me and asked me to wrap to give to our mother, saying, “It is not much but it is all I have to give her.”
I know it is not politically correct to focus on only Christ during the holiday season but really whose birthday is it?  With all of this happy holiday stuff and parties and gift giving we forget about whose birthday we are celebrating. And what a slap in the face that must be to He who came to give us the greatest gift of all.
So I encourage those who profess to be Christians to honor the birthday boy. Give him the gift of your time by attending Church on his birthday. And give him gifts. I know everyone’s pocketbook is empty by now, but it is not too late.  Make a commitment – give to your church’s deacon fund, the rescue mission or the Salvation Army on a regular basis next year. You say, “He is God. He doesn’t need presents.”  Yet Jesus said in Matthew chapter 25 “for I was hungry and you gave me no food:  I was thirsty and you gave me no drink; naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ …‘Assuredly, I say onto you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do onto Me.’
So I thank you to those who gave to the Salvation Army this year. You allowed one of the least of these to have the blessing of giving to others. And because of you, my Grinchy heart grew two sizes that day.
Mary Lou Walters
Old Orchard Way, Petersburgh