“Christmas followed hard on the heels of my friend's recovery...”
Several winters ago, a friend became seriously ill and ended up in hospital. The news went out of the seriousness of his illness and many, many, many friends began to show up during visiting hours to see him and bring him get well cards, fruit baskets, chocolates, stuffed toys to keep him company and one friend, who knew how much he loved Chinese dumplings, made a fresh batch and brought them as a get well gift. You might be thinking that this is a perfectly normal thing for caring friends to do, and it is. However, this friend, who had rarely ever been sick let alone hospitalized, did not realize how many friends he had or how much they cared for him or that they cared enough for him to go out of their way to both visit him, and bring gifts!
I was not surprised by how many people went to visit this friend. He is a very witty guy and no one quite tells jokes the way he does — for one thing, he can remember them! Now while this friend was known to be personally compassionate and generous, he did have quite the reputation for being a Scrooge at Christmas time. In fact, he was heard to say most faithfully every year, "I hate Christmas! I hate the commercialism and I won't be caught up in it!" And he was quite faithful to his dictum for when invited to share Christmas day with different friends, he only ever really went armed with whatever pop he was going to drink — no gifts, and rarely a Christmas card. He joked that his presence was a gift!
Christmas followed hard on the heels of my friend's recovery and that year he was invited along with 20 or so others to feast at my sister's place. You can't begin to imagine our shock when he arrived loaded down with packages and parcels. At first we thought he was carrying them indoors for someone else. But no, he had brought treats for the dinner table and cards and gifts for all his friends!
He was quite frank about his conversion to Christmas. He had never really known or appreciated how many people cared about him before he became ill and he was extremely glad that he had not died before finding out. He also confessed that he had always felt very lonely at Christmas and believed that very few people actually cared for him even if they gave him gifts because he really only ever saw the gift-giving as an expression of the tradition of 'crass commercialism'. That year he saw Christmas as the perfect opportunity to express how grateful he was for friends and also to show his friends how much he cared for them by wholeheartedly taking part in all the festivities they enjoyed, instead of 'Scrooging' his way through them, as he had done every other year.
There are perhaps many who would see my friend's reaction as an inappropriate response to the Spirit of Christmas and that he had only responded with a spirit of 'crass commercialism' himself. However, I saw his response as the action of a hardened heart cracking. For surely the hardened heart can only see the possibility of a loving God first through the continued expressions of caring, kindness and love of God's children through the many dry seasons a hardened heart strives to endure.
That is perhaps the only possible explanation for what followed not long after that memorable Christmas, when the true depth and meaning for the season became all the more clear to my friend as he surrendered himself to Jesus and called on Him as Lord of his life. His 'new' life in Christ truly marking the death of his 'old' man 'Scrooge'.
May you be blessed to see and hear a hardened heart crack this Christmas.
Madelaine is a wonderful friend and writer. Thanks, Madie, for the gift of your considerable talents!—Grant