Pleather Gloves

During the Christmas season, often gifts from the heart are replaced by lofty expectations.

Every year it happens.  At this holiday time of year, we often try to do too much.  Run here, run there, do this, do that.  And we can find ourselves questioning our own motives.  Did we get the right gift?  Did we spend enough?  Did we spend evenly on the ones we love?  Will they even use it?  We often end up second guessing ourselves and are left feeling dismayed.

This whole gift giving season dilemma reminds me of a story.  Several Christmas seasons ago, my wife and I were listening to the radio when a commercial for winter gloves came on the station.  This happened to trigger my wife’s memory of a touching story our neighbor lady once told her that made me stop and think.

Many years ago, our neighbor’s husband pastored a local church.  On one particular Christmas they decided to get a reasonably priced gift for a certain man in their congregation.  So, they bought him a pair of pleather gloves.  When they presented him the Christmas gloves he began to cry because he had never received a Christmas gift before in his life.  That one small act of kindness meant that he mattered.

This story prompted me to think outside my comfort zone while I was doing some Christmas shopping, the same year I heard about the pleather gloves.  It was a particularly frigid day and I was about to enter a department store, when I saw two men collecting money for the Salvation Army.  I declined and went about my business, but it bothered me.  Consequently, on the way out I decided to get them both a cup of coffee.  Jesus had mentioned once that when you give a cup of cold water to those in need you are in essence giving it to Him. So, I thought under the circumstances a hot cup of Joe would do just fine. 

 

The point is, that during this festive holiday season, we should strongly consider making room for kindness.  We all should take a chance and take the time to go out of our way to do something kind for someone we may or may not know.  Just think, don’t be like the innkeeper who had no room at his Inn for the baby Jesus and his family.  Instead, always make occasion for kindness.

Pleather gloves may mean very little for many of us, but to someone with cold hands they mean the world.

Swavel