Our Perfectly Imperfect Christmas Gift: Lessons from a 7 Year Old.

Natalie, my 7 year old princess, had packed a few shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child at church last week.  Sunday night, after we left church, she reminded me that she wanted to pack one for a little girl.  So, I went around the block, came back to the front door, and let her run in and grab a box.  The box landed in the floor board of the back seat, and there it remained.  We mentioned it several times, but I had no clue when it was due.  I figured we had at least a week or so…Right?

Wednesday (tonight) rolls around.  As we are standing around fellowshipping after church (as good Pentecostals do), she worriedly tells me they are due TONIGHT!  AHHHHH!  Yep.  You guessed it.  I had bought nothing.  Not one thing.  I quickly prayed for a miracle and we headed to the Dollar store!  Thank you, LORD, for letting Dollar General stay open until 10pm.  It was 9:30ish when we left the church!

 

Now, in my mind I had all these grand plans for this little box.  I wanted everything to be color coordinated and carefully chosen.  I envisioned pretty little pencils with flowers and bows and matching pencil sharpener, an adorable outfit with handmade hair bow and matching socks, a nice little doll (that cost more than a dollar)…you get the idea.  However, here we were running through the dollar store grabbing whatever we could find.  Matching seemed pointless at this late hour.  We needed to hurry so we could catch someone still at church!  “God, that is CERTAINLY going to require a miracle!  I’m depending on you.”

Right here…this very moment…this is where it gets good.  Natalie was in Heaven!  She was so excited!  She picked out toothbrushes, and pencils, water color paints, crayons (the nice ones), markers, colored pencils, a little doll, a light up ball, and so many other things.  I grabbed the only pack of girl’s underwear in the size we thought a child between the ages of 5-9 might wear.  She picked out suckers, I chose gum.  Her little box was packed full!  The most amazing thing?  My child did not ask for one single thing for herself.  This trip to the store was totally, completely, unselfishly for a child that MY child will never see.  The entire 15 minute shopping trip, she said over and over.  “I’m so excited!  She is going to LOVE it!  I only wish I could see her face when she opens this!” 

My heart skipped a beat or two, and I was reminded all over again of how blessed we are with all we have.  How blessed I am to be her mother.  How thankful I am that we live here in America in the land of plenty.  How blessed we are to be able to openly attend an amazing church, with great children’s leaders and teachers who teach her about showing love like Jesus does. How grateful I am for a Savior who loves us unconditionally, and who teaches me through my 7 year old.

 

My mind bounced around all over the place.  It landed briefly on the memories of my own mission trip to Ecuador, and watching those babies get so excited when we shared one small individual sized bag of potato chips among 30 or 40 children.  The ones at the end of the line were happy to lick the bag.  I thought of how proudly they carried around the beanie babies we gave them.  They unselfishly shared them with each other, and ooh’ed and ahhhh’ed over each other’s toys.  I thought about our mission trip next summer to New Mexico.  Natalie has been waiting for her “whole life” of 7 years to go on a mission trip.  She will get to see firsthand the joy of the children as we share with them.  I remembered her awe of me sharing food with a homeless man.   She thought that was the coolest thing ever.  I didn’t really give it much thought.  We don’t run into homeless people often, so it’s not something we do regularly.  However, he looked hungry and I had food.  In my mind, it was a no brainer.  That’s how I was raised by my awesome parents.  Giving is a way of life for us.  So is receiving.  I don’t think about these things, we just do them.  But, in that moment, in that trip through the dollar store, I realized that she got it.  The thing that I often forget.  It wasn’t just what we do.  It was why we do it.

We made our purchase and rushed back to church.  God made sure there were still folks there, even though they were about ready to leave.  We ran in, ripped open packages, and had that box packed in 2.5 minutes.  Natalie asked how we could track our box, only to find out we had to do that online.  Permission was received to deliver it in the morning, and we headed home to make our online donation.   The excitement continued!

On the ride home, I told Nat how proud I was of her.  She was puzzled, and wanted to know why.  I pointed out that she hadn’t asked for one single thing while we were at the store.  That opened the flood gates and my tenderhearted, loving, giving baby cried.  Words jumbled and poured straight from her little soul.  She went into how these little children don’t have what she has.  How she was so blessed and has so many things, but they don’t.  How she is so lucky to go to church and be able to learn about God, but they don’t know God.  How she wants them to be saved and have a Bible and learn about how much God loves them.  And how this one little gift will let one little girl she will never see know that another little girl in another part of the world loves her just like Jesus does.

 

My own eyes grew a little misty as we pulled into the driveway.  “Lord, thank you for this precious child of ours!  She’s mine, but she’s really Yours.  Thank you for sharing her with me.”

We gathered our things and stumbled through the door.  I made a bee line for the computer, pulled up Samaritan’s Purse, and paid the little bit to track our box.  Natty was looking over my shoulder, and got excited when she saw we could provide a Bible and school books for the child with an additional small amount.  That sent her through the roof!  That was the one thing we didn’t get because we didn’t know what language to buy.  I printed off the label, and she grabbed the tape.  She watched excitedly as I taped the label on.  I was mortified to see the tape had gathered multiple cat hairs between being peeled off the roll and applied to the box.  She thought it was great!  She giggled, “The cats are saying HEY!”  She wrote a note (that said we have cats…just in case they saw the cat hair).  I found a photo of her to put in the box.  It’s all finished and ready to deliver in the morning.

Our little box isn’t perfect, but it is full of the things that are important to us: Clean underwear, toothbrushes, lots of art supplies, a few toys, some jewelry, a little candy, and a whole lot of love!  Now that I think about it, our box is actually a lot like us.  Nothing matches, but it’s colorful and fun…and covered in cat hair, hahaha.  Does it really matter if we have all the things that I had envisioned?  Of course not.  This child on the other side of the world is still a child.  She will be excited to receive a gift.  She will probably be like Natalie, curious about the child at the other end of the package.  We will pray for her.  Whoever delivers the boxes will tell her that Jesus loves her.  They will teach her about God.  How He gave the gift of His Son, who in turn gave the gift of His life…all so that she can receive the ultimate gift of salvation through Him.  We will pray that she receives it.  

If you are interested in packing your own shoebox for a child, check out Samaritan's Purse's Operation Christmas Child.  Or, contact your local Salvation Army and adopt an Angel.  Check with your local Family and Children's Services, local churches, or even a local school to see if there is a child or family you could sponsor. Sadly, there is always need.