My Husband’s Nephew is currently serving a Mission and sends him weekly E-mails. On this weeks E-Mail was a reference to a talk gave by Elder Bednar which he described it as “the single most inspired and inspiring, insightful and thought-provoking address” he had ever seen and would recommend that everyone watch it. Well I watched it and agreed. Oh How Moving it was. The Character of Christ is most certainly something all Christians should be concerned with. But this moved me so much that I spent half an hour in tears.
There was so much in the talk but what struck me most is the capacity to see others needs whilst suffering our own trials. While The Saviour had fasted 40 days & been tempted by Satan, Angels came to minister but Jesus knowing that John Suffered sent Angels to minister to John. The Saviour even in his own hour of need thinks of others before himself.
The Saviour has set the example to Look outwards to others before looking at our own inward needs. After all The Saviour said:
But whosoever shall be willing to lose his life for my sake, and the gospel, the same shall save it.
Surely that is what Alma meant when he said: “…..as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light
Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death….. [Mosiah 18: 8-9]
It’s inspired me and I hope you too can gain Inspiration from this Sisters and draw nearer unto the Saviour.
The ancient prophet Isaiah foretold the coming of the Messiah and revealed much about His roles.
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).
Several centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ, the prophet Isaiah recorded the things revealed to him regarding the circumstances of Christ’s coming. One such prophecy, found in Isaiah 9:6, gives us in just a few words a wealth of knowledge about the Savior and the roles He plays in our lives and in Heavenly Father’s plan. Here are some explanations of the ideas expressed in this verse.
A Child Is Born, a Son Is Given
The Savior was revealed to Adam, the first man, as the Only Begotten Son of God (see Moses 5:7, 9; 6:52, 57, 59, 62). Since then all the holy prophets have testified of the coming of the Son of God in the flesh to redeem His people (see Acts 10:43; Jacob 4:4).
What does Christ’s birth signify?
The angel who announced the Savior’s birth to the shepherds declared “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people” (Luke 2:10).
When Nephi saw a vision of the virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus, he was moved to affirm “the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men” (1 Nephi 11:22).
The Savior Himself declared that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
Government upon His Shoulder
In ancient Israel, the priests and kings were clothed with a robe and wore the insignia of their office on the shoulder (see Isaiah 22:21–22). Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came “as one having authority” (Matthew 7:29). And He will reign as King of kings and Lord of lords during the Millennium, when “he reigns whose right it is to reign” (D&C 58:22; see also Articles of Faith 1:10).
Wonderful Counsellor
The word wonderful comes from the Hebrew word for “miracle,” suggesting both the Messiah’s miraculous birth and the miracles He would perform during His life. The word counsellor has to do with the commandments and teachings the Messiah would bring to guide us back to Heavenly Father. As the Book of Mormon prophet Jacob said, “[The Lord] counseleth in wisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works” (Jacob 4:10).
The Mighty God
“Believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the greatest [figure] of time and eternity. Believe that his matchless life reached back before the world was formed. Believe that he was the Creator of the earth on which we live. Believe that he was Jehovah of the Old Testament, that he was the Messiah of the New Testament, that he died and was resurrected, … and that he lives, the living Son of the living God, our Savior and our Redeemer.”
President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008), “Be Not Faithless,” Tambuli, Apr. 1990, 4; Ensign, Apr. 1989, 2.
The Everlasting Father
“Jehovah, who is Jesus Christ the Son of Elohim, is called ‘the Father,’ and even ‘the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth’ (see … Mosiah 16:15). With analogous meaning Jesus Christ is called ‘The Everlasting Father’ (Isa. 9:6; compare 2 Ne. 19:6). … Jesus Christ, being the Creator, is consistently called the Father of heaven and earth … ; and since His creations are of eternal quality He is very properly called the Eternal Father of heaven and earth.”
“The Father and the Son: A Doctrinal Exposition by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles,” Ensign, Apr. 2002, 13; from Improvement Era, Aug. 1916, 934–42.
The Prince of Peace
“Perhaps we stray from the path which leads to peace and find it necessary to pause, to ponder, and to reflect on the teachings of the Prince of Peace and determine to incorporate them in our thoughts and actions and to live a higher law, walk a more elevated road, and be a better disciple of Christ.”
President Thomas S. Monson, “Finding Peace,” Liahona and Ensign, Mar. 2004, 3.
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27).
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[Song] For Unto us a child is born
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[Scripture] Luke 2:11
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
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[Challenge – Press Pause] – Born of an earthly mother and or Heavenly Father, Jesus is both our brother and our Saviour. He gave His life so that we could live together forever. It is His birth we celebrate at Christmastime. Jesus is a symbol for many things, but at Christmas, it is His perfect love for us that we remember most. Take a minute today after opening presents, eating food and being merry to pause and think about the saviour. Think about who He is to you and what you are thankful for.
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[Story relating to the challenge]
The Christmas Scene by Neal A. Maxwell
The Christmas scene is so varied: frustrated fathers poring over directions written in failed English while trying to assemble toys packaged by someone who miscounted the nuts and bolts; bleary-eyed, bone-weary mothers desperately sewing after hours to finish a dress; a child neglecting an expensive gift in favor of something surprisingly simple; elegant, carefully applied wrappings being torn quickly apart as if they were an obstacle instead of part of the gift; the unforeseen need for more batteries increasing as parents’ own energy supplies diminish; and with the deadline drawing ever closer, parental exhaustion finally triumphing over spousal communication.
We gladly shower so much on each other and then feel guilty amid our comparative abundance. Yet more presents were likely put under the tree than there were gifts placed in others’ storehouses of self-esteem. More bright wrappings may have been scattered about than bright words of good cheer.
Nintendos follow yesteryear’s coveted Cabbage Patch dolls into the dustbin of history. Our material gifts, like our natural Christmas trees, soon perish, if only from appreciative use. The new tie, at least in my case, will be spilled on before week’s end.
Even so, commercialized as the Christmas scene has become, this season is still one of the few times when much of the human family shares a focused pause and joins in some religious contemplation. For a moment at least, Christmas takes us outside the tiny theater of self into “the broad, sunlit uplands.” Yes, we still wish Christmas were more deeply felt and lasted longer, but the visibly increased goodwill nevertheless reminds us, if only briefly, of what could be everlastingly. For a few days, the first and second commandments are more pondered and observed.
At Christmas time, and rightly so, the capacity for receiving is also needed. Yes, there really is also a season under heaven for receiving. In view of all God has given to us, we ought to be pretty good at receiving, but we are not. We who regard ourselves as quite self-sufficient and independent often find receiving awkward, even difficult. Sometimes the Lord provides us with unwanted circumstances in our lives in order to teach us how to receive.
Clearly, there are times in life when one person needs to say or to give something—and to do so much more than the other person needs to hear or receive it. How frequently our communications with God reflect this circumstance! He does not need us to inform Him of our needs through petitionary prayer. Nevertheless, He provides for our need to petition and our need to thank and to praise Him.
We should not be surprised, however, if the need to give and the need to receive are not always precisely matched. There is bound to be some disappointment at times, including Christmas.
Let us consider, however, a few fundamentals of the Christmas scene which are never dismantled and are never “over.”
Celebrating that special star, as we do, denotes an acknowledgment of divine design that operates each day of the year, refuting those who declare that the universe represents “godless geometric space,” or that we live in “an unsponsored universe,” in an “empire of chance.” The little star of Bethlehem was not little, given all its accompanying implications!
The new star, by the way, would have had to be placed in its precise orbit long, long before it shone so precisely! By reflecting such careful divine design, it underscored what the Lord has said: “All things must come to pass in their time” (D&C 64:32). His planning and precision pertain not only to astrophysical orbits but to human orbits as well. This is a stunning thing for us to contemplate in all seasons! How great the implications of the revelations!
Therefore, what about our individualized orbits and schedules? Do we appear on the scene on time, and do we “shine as lights in the world” as the Apostle Paul urged? (Philippians 2:15.) Yes, there is a personalized plan for each of us. Like the Christmas star, each of us, if faithful, has an ordained orbit, a prescribed path, as we pass through this second estate.
We sing, “The stars in the heavens looked down where He lay.” The on-looking universe, created by Jesus under the Father’s direction, contained “worlds without number” (Moses 1:33). In that sense, Christ was cradled not only in a manger but also in the midst of His own vast creations.
On the Eastern Hemisphere, the special star which signaled His birth was recognized by only a few shepherds and several wise men. The multitudes were too busy with great feasts and taxes. They were too preoccupied with the ebb and flow of political power, as are so many in our own time. When Christ comes again, however, it will not be to the meekness of the manger but in majesty and power. The sign of His second coming will be such that “all people shall see it together” (D&C 88:93), not just a humble few. How the Lord will manage all that we do not know, but He clearly declares “all flesh shall see me together” (D&C 101:23). What an impending moment!
Exclaiming “Joy to the world!” provides a much-needed antidote to those who say, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die” (2 Nephi 28:7). Truly, “men are, that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:25)—unless they choose questionable, perishable pleasure instead! Lyrics like “Christ, the Savior, is born” constitute a faith-filled response to those who declare, “No deity will save us; we must save ourselves” (Humanist Manifesto II, 1973).
Still, despite Christmas and seasonal renewal, an objective observer of the human scene would agree that the sea of Christian faith is on the ebb. Matthew Arnold so wrote of that ebbing sea of faith, and of how there is only to be heard
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
(“Dover Beach”)
In a world filled with distress, despair, and perplexity, Christmas reminds those who have eyes to see of the humble beginning of Jesus’ great rescue mission. Many mortals, even those who do not believe we are a fallen race, agree that mankind is in distress. As C. S. Lewis wrote, “disgraced [man] may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned” (C. S. Lewis, The Authentic Voice, p. 88). If we look closely—and Christmas stirs us to look closely—the worn label in those “rags” tells us of our true identity.
God’s gifts, unlike seasonal gifts, are eternal and unperishable, constituting a continuing Christmas which is never over! These infinite gifts are made possible by the “infinite atonement” (2 Nephi 9:7; Alma 34:10–12). Without the “infinite atonement” there would be no universal immortality, nor could there be given the greatest gift which even God can give—eternal life! (D&C 6:13; 14:7.)
Meanwhile, if we cannot distinguish the eternal things from the things of the day, we are to be pitied. The first Christmas in the Middle East was met with massive, uncomprehending indifference. In both fact and symbol there was no room at the inn. People were busy, just as in the days of Noah, and just as they will be prior to the Second Coming.
Sometimes the Lord’s work meets with icy indifference; at other times, with stiff resistance. The latter was the case in the Americas that first Christmas. Unbelievers threatened members of the Church with death if the prophesied sign heralding Jesus’ birth did not occur precisely as calendared (3 Nephi 1:9). What immense pressure and anxiety that band of Christians must have felt! Had the date actually passed? Could they hold out? Only at the last moment did the divine reassurance come: “On the morrow come I into the world” (3 Nephi 1:13). True faith can carry us past seeming breaking points! For real Christians, “hold on,” “hold fast,” “endure well” finally become much more than mere words.
Think of the wise men. From whence they came and how long their journey, we know not. We know only that they came from the east.
Upon their arrival in Jerusalem, the wise men made a courtesy call upon Herod and were requested by that wily one to return and tell him where they found the Christ child. Having been warned in a dream, they wisely hearkened again to divine counsel and did not inform the king (Matthew 2:12). They knew how to render unto Caesar what was Caesar’s, but unto God that which was God’s (Matthew 22:21). The world’s Caesars and Herods come and go, “an hour of pomp, an hour of show,” but these wise men had come to worship the King of kings.
Bethlehem blends with Gethsemane and Calvary to symbolize God’s great gift of the Messiah and the infinite atonement!
He before whom a few gifts were laid in that lowly manger has spread so many gifts before us, thereby providing an unending Christmas. In fact, from Him for whom there was no room at the inn there comes to the faithful so many blessings “that there shall not be room enough to receive [them]”! (Malachi 3:10.)
The words expressed in celebration of Jesus’ birth (“Good tidings of great joy,” “A Saviour” is born, “Glory to God in the highest” [Luke 2:10, 11, 14]) followed a millennia of waiting for the Messiah to be born. The birth at Bethlehem signaled that very soon that great redemption would come! What were a mere thirty-three more years until the glorious redemption, when some had waited thirty-three centuries!
Felicity is often followed by irony. Later in Jesus’ mortal Messiahship, Lazarus, whose life Jesus miraculously restored, soon found that happy life endangered. The enemies of Jesus clearly did not want a living witness to the Savior’s healing power. (John 12:10–12.) After Jesus was resurrected, one wonders, did Lazarus remain an object of curiosity, and even of hostility, among some of his contemporaries?
Ironies so often follow the felicities and the reveries in our lives. In fact, irony is a particularly sharp, customized, cutting tool of adversity. No one experienced more irony than Jesus during His mortal Messiahship.
After Egypt, the First Family resided in Nazareth. Micah had prophesied Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), but Matthew wrote of prophecies saying Christ would be known as a Nazarene (Matthew 2:23). Earlier Book of Mormon prophets foretold that Mary would be a Nazarene (1 Nephi 11:13). Without a fulness of the scriptures, however, there occurred a misreading:
Many of the people therefore, when they heard this saying, said, Of a truth this is the Prophet.
Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee?
Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?
So there was a division among the people because of him. (John 7:40–43.)
Today there is still “a division” concerning Jesus. Some say He is merely a man, a thing of “naught” (John 7:42, 43; 1 Nephi 19:7). Others regard Him as a great moral teacher. Still others, as a minor prophet. Some say, correctly and happily, He is the redeeming Messiah!
The first Christmas included admirable Joseph, who endured misunderstanding. Being a just man, he had not wished to embarrass Mary. Then, while he pondered, an angel appeared to reassure and to direct him. (Matthew 1:18–24.) But Joseph first had to endure and ponder the trial of the unexplainable—before the witness came, just as in Moroni’s counsel: “Dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith” (Ether 12:6).
Then there was Mary. She knew more than she could tell. Furthermore, she also had been told things she could not fully understand, so she kept these things in her heart and pondered them. (Luke 2:19–51.) Even so, she could not be expected to see the full dimensions of the great work of which she was such an important part. Sometimes she was an understandably anxious mother, as when her twelve-year-old son seemed lost. Found, He said to her, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49.)
Is not a mixture of insight and anxiety to be found in each of us? We too sometimes know more than we can tell, more than tongue can transmit. Nor does our special gospel knowledge immunize us from all anxiety. We are still required to go through daily life, not around it.
Just why did God choose to have Jesus born in an obscure manger? To live in an obscure country, on an obscure planet, in an obscure solar system, which is at the outer edges of the Milky Way, a comparatively ordinary galaxy, one of a million million galaxies? We do not know.
Having genuine faith in God clearly requires not only believing that He is there but also that He is cosmically competent—that He can really bring to pass His purposes (2 Nephi 27:20, 21).
As we begin to sense the immensity of God’s plans, we also begin to ponder the breathtaking personalness of His work. While guiding galaxies, God notices the fall of each sparrow and knows the secret desires of our individual hearts. The vastness of His work is unfathomable to us: “That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God” (D&C 76:24).
Does our faith in Jesus include faith in His timing, whether in His macro-management of the entire universe or in His micro-shepherding of us?
Bethlehem, Gethsemane, and Calvary thus conjoin to provide a Christmas which is as infinite as the infinite atonement—and as unending.
Jesus’ name was determined premortally to be the loftiest, and the only name under heaven offering salvation to mankind. Yet on earth He willingly lived, wrote Paul, as a person “of no reputation” (Philippians 2:7).
As the Creator Lord, He constructed the universe, yet in Galilee He was known merely as “the carpenter’s son”! (Matthew 13:55.) The Lord of the universe was even without honor in His own provincial Nazarene countryside (Mark 6:4).
He issued the original commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy, but was accused of violating the Sabbath because He gave healing rest to the afflicted (John 5:8–16).
The irony was constant. This whole earth is actually Jesus’ footstool, but at Bethlehem there was “no crib for his bed.” Christ was keenly aware of irony: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Luke 9:58).
Jesus was Lord of all the prophets. Truly, “before Abraham” was He, Jehovah (John 8:58). But for His so saying, some quickly sought to take Jesus’ life (John 8:59).
Jesus, as Jehovah, called, prepared, and taught Moses, introducing the law of Moses as a schoolmaster for the later fulness of His gospel (Galatians 3:24; 2 Nephi 25:24). Yet when Jesus unsuccessfully reminded audiences that Moses had written of Him, the people still preferred honoring Moses to listening to Jesus’ words (John 5:46–47; see also Luke 24:27).
An anxious Pilate “saith unto Jesus, Whence are thou? But Jesus gave him no answer.” (John 19:9.) Yet months earlier, to a woman of Samaria who expected the Messiah, Jesus had quietly disclosed, “I that speak unto thee am he” (John 4:26).
After certain religious leaders enflamed the pre-crucifixion crowd, He who within hours would rescue all mankind heard the manipulated crowd cry “Barabbas,” who was thereby rescued instead of Jesus (Mark 15:11).
Christ the Creator fashioned “worlds without number,” providing us with astrophysical awe when viewing even “the least of these” (D&C 88:47). Yet with His fingers He created clay from spittle, restoring sight to one blind man (John 9:6).
No wonder the declaratory focus of the first Christmas was on “a Savior is born.” What greater tidings could there be than those “good tidings of great joy”? No wonder the reverential exclamation praising our planning and loving Father—indeed, “Glory to God in the highest”!
“Come, let us adore Him,” Jesus Christ. The ultimate form of adoration of Him is emulation! Come, let us glorify God with our daily lives!
Like the wise men from the east, we too must travel a great distance in order to come unto Christ, the Light of the World. No matter—He waits for us “with open arms” (Mormon 6:17). May Christmas cause us deeper contemplation and deeper determination to complete that journey, the journey of journeys—in order to experience that resplendent rendezvous.
What counsel then comes to us out of that Bethlehem chapter to help us be worthy and effective participants in the further unfolding chapters?
We should be like that star—in our proper orbit and place, on time, putting our talents to work, doing what we have been asked to do. God has placed us in our proper human orbits with the same precision he used as He placed that star in a certain trajectory ages before it shone brightly that special night. Like that star, we too must reflect the glory of God and not seek to shine for our own sake. Illuminated individuals should remember that “a candle is not lighted for itself, and neither is a man.” (George McDonald, Life Essential, p. 79.)
We should emulate the shepherds who “made known abroad” all that which was told them. And we have been told so much more! We too must be willing to leave off other tasks in order to declare the glad and good tidings of Christ’s gospel and Church fully restored. The scriptures say the shepherds “came with haste.” Their lengthening of their stride is a sermon in itself.
We can be like the wise men and notice the signs in the midst of an unnoticing world and seek the Savior—refusing, as did the wise men, to be used improperly by earthly rulers, yet giving freely of our gifts and talents and time, for these are the real gold, frankincense, and myrrh of our lives.
Let us do what is right even when misunderstood, just as Joseph did, and endure the doubts and even the derision of others who simply do not understand what divine purposes are under way.
We should, as did John the Baptist while yet a babe in Elizabeth’s womb, leap in anticipation and acknowledgment of the impending Christ. We too need a sense of history and of our place in preparing the way for His coming.
Like our fellow members of the ancient Church on the American Hemisphere, we ought to be willing to trust (even up to the last moment) in the fulfillment of prophecy. These Saints trusted in Samuel’s prophecy about the Savior’s birth (Helaman 14:3–5) even when their lives were forfeit (3 Nephi 1:8–9).
We will need to be like Mary and keep some things in our hearts and ponder them trustingly, for we too know more than we can tell. And should we, like the Christ child, need to spend a season in an Egypt of patient preparation and waiting, so be it!
We should avoid being deeply disappointed or surprised when the modern innkeepers or the establishments of the world have no room for Christ’s servants or cannot “give place for a portion” of Christ’s word (Alma 32:27). For us too, better a spiritual manger than a stay in those secular inns of the intellect which are so exclusionary of spiritual things.
Let us not be surprised, either, if the Herods of today are no more humane than the one of the Christ child’s day, especially when they think their kingdoms are to be threatened by the kingdom of God. Let us be wise as serpents and harmless as doves as we are confronted with the modern counterparts of that wily Herod who asked the wise men to return to him to tell him where the Babe was so that he too could come to “worship.” It is better to be rejected than “taken in” by those who would use us to hurt God’s work.
Yes, the larger Christmas story is clearly not over. It is not solely about some other time, some other place, and some other people. It is still unfolding, and we are in it!
Like the wise men who persisted to Bethlehem, let us not turn back from our full journey—beyond Bethlehem—and we too shall be led to Him.
So, in gospel gladness, we wish for ourselves and each other not only a “Merry Christmas” with all that implies, and not just a “Happy New Year,” but also the joys and happiness of eternal life, God’s greatest gift!
My Friend Judith shared with me her 2 Favourite Scriptures which were found in Isaiah 9:2 and 9:6-7 speaking of the people walking in darkness that see a great light. That great Light spoken of by Isaiah was The Saviour, The Light of the world.
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” [V6]
This little child, born in a stable and cradled in a manger, was a gift from our loving Heavenly Father. He was the promised Redeemer of the world, the Saviour of mankind, the Son of the living God. He was with His Father before He came to earth in mortality, the Creator of the earth upon which we stand.
The great Apostle John gives us a sense of the greatness of this child in the courts on high, from which He came: “Without him was not any thing made that was made.” Yet He came to earth in humble circumstances.
He worked as a boy and a youth in the carpenter’s shop of Joseph in Nazareth. In His mortal ministry He walked the dusty roads of Palestine, healed the sick, raised the dead, taught His gospel to people who rejected Him, gave His life on Calvary’s hill, and rose on the third day in what began the Resurrection to break the bands of death for us all and so became “the firstfruits of them that slept.”
Above all, the Saviour whose birth we remember this season of the year paid the price of all of our sins. Again the prophet Isaiah, long before our Lord’s birth, saw the gift beyond price of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
He gave us this description of what the Saviour did for us:
“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
Those who have felt that peace and healing have their hearts filled with gratitude.
[Henry B. Eyring]
I know of that peace and healing and gratitude that comes from partaking of the Atonement that Christ so willingly offered for us. I Hope this day we reflect not just of the baby that was born for us but of the God that died for us. [Audrey Boardman]
Our family has always enjoyed a Christmas tradition of setting out a ceramic Nativity scene—complete with Wise Men, camels, shepherds, sheep, and, of course, Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. Each season the Nativity scene was the same.
One year when my children were young, I carefully unwrapped each piece and set them up to represent the first Christmas. The children gathered around to watch. We talked about the birth of Jesus and the visit of the shepherds and the Wise Men. Then I cautioned the children, as always, not to touch the pieces, explaining that they were fragile and easy to break.
This year, however, the temptation was too great for my two-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. The day we set up the Nativity scene, I noticed several times, with some irritation, that a camel had wandered from its appointed place or a sheep had strayed from the watchful care of the shepherd. Each time, I returned the piece to its rightful place, then tracked down the culprit and admonished her to leave things alone.
The next morning, Elizabeth awoke and went downstairs before I did. When I walked into the living room, I noticed right away that the manger scene had been disturbed again. All the pieces were clumped together in a mass, as tightly as they could be fitted together.
Impatiently, I stepped forward to put things right; but I stopped short as I realized that some thought had gone into this new arrangement. All twenty-three figures were grouped in a circle, facing inward, pushed together as if to get the best view possible of the figure resting in the center of them all—the baby Jesus.
The Spirit touched my soul as I pondered the insight of a two-year-old. Certainly, Christ should be the center of our holiday celebrations. If we all could draw in around our Savior—not only during the Christmas season, but during each day—what a better perspective we would have. The love he offers to each of us would be easily shared with others who have not ventured so close.
I left the Nativity scene arranged according to Elizabeth’s design that year. It served as a simple reminder during the rest of the season of what Christmas is all about.
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[Song] Wise men still seek Him {Different From CD}
He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
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[Challenge – Endure] – Camels have a lot of physiological adaptations that allow them to withstand long periods of time without any external source of water. Camels are able to withstand changes in body temperature and water consumption that would kill most other animals. The camels carried heavy packs on their backs for their long journey. They had to simply endure the trail day by day in all conditions. They helped the wise men cross the dessert and reach their destination, which was were the young Saviour was. Find one thing today that you can be patient with and endure, having faith that there is goodness and wonder at the end of the trail.
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[Article/Story relating to the challenge]
Shining Moment: A Memorable Christmas
Contributed By Rey Johnson, Church News contributor
As a University of Utah student from 1956 to 1961, I was associated with the LDS institute and the LDS social organization, Lambda Delta Sigma. Among our many memorable activities was the annual Christmas caroling outing. This wasn’t just your ordinary neighborhood group. Lambda Delta Sigma was a large organization, and we typically had a hundred students participating in those caroling sessions.
The highlight of the evening was always the visit to President David O. McKay’s home on East South Temple in Salt Lake City. Their home featured a large front porch, and each year we would assemble in the front yard and sing while President and Sister McKay would stand on the porch and listen and then graciously thank us for our visit.
Christmas 1960, however, was a bit different. As a consequence of advancing years, the McKays moved into a suite in what was then the Hotel Utah, now the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. You don’t take a hundred bundled-up carolers into the limited confines of their suite. Instead, we went to the home of President J. Reuben Clark, then a counselor to President McKay. President Clark’s home, located in the “avenues” in Salt Lake City, was a modest home with a front yard just large enough to accommodate a hundred carolers. At this time President Clark was bedridden and his bed was adjacent to an upstairs window overlooking the front yard.
His window was opened, and we sang. Then he spoke to us from his upstairs window. I don’t remember all that was said, but one line hit me powerfully. He said, “I pray every day that I will have strength to endure to the end.”
Here was a man who was a distinguished attorney, author, former U.S. ambassador, former assistant secretary of state, an Apostle for over 26 years, and a counselor to the President of the Church! And his prayer was that he would stay true to the course. And of course President Clark stayed true. He passed away the following October, having touched my life in a very personal way. He left me with a challenge that I too may have strength to endure to the end.
This experience has caused me to reflect on the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his “A Psalm of Life”:
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
Media link:[Wise Men Still Seek Him – Modern-Day Story of The Wise Men ]
If we can give hope to a neighbour whose hope in an eternal future has been dimmed by a much too worldly present, we shall have given that which is of more worth than any gift that could be conveyed in coloured wrappings.
Looking forward with hope has defined Christmas since the beginning. For millennia, prophets anticipated the coming of the Messiah. Wise men looked to the heavens before they saw a bright new star. And Mary and Joseph must have earnestly anticipated the birth of the precious babe as they journeyed to Bethlehem.
Each year we, too, look forward with hope. Christmas is the sweet assurance that we can rest our hope in Christ and look to the future with faith. Christmas is marked by a spirit of hopeful anticipation, of joyful preparation, of earnest longing for good things to come. At Christmas, we fill the world with hope one child, one person, at a time.
This retelling of a story entitled Where Love Is, There God Is Also by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) is about a man who, for a time, lost all hope.
Martin, a village shoemaker, lost his wife and then each of his children to a dreaded disease. He was stricken with grief. In his loneliness, he declared, “I am now a man who has no hope.” While despairing, Martin met a pilgrim, a man of God, who encouraged him to read the New Testament in the Bible. That very day, Martin bought a copy of the New Testament in large print and began reading. He could not stop reading. He learned about Jesus, about His life and teachings, and read until all the kerosene had burned out of his lamp. He read the next day and the next. As he read, his heart grew lighter and he began to hope again.
Every night, he would sit at his table by the fire and read. One night, he read about the Pharisee who invited Jesus into his home, after which a woman came and washed the Saviour’s feet with her tears. Martin wondered if he would be like the Pharisee, thinking about himself, or if he would be like the woman who humbly worshipped the Lord. While he was pondering, he put his elbows on the table and fell asleep. He wasn’t sure if he was dreaming, but he thought he heard the Lord just outside his door say, “Martin, Martin, look tomorrow into the street. I am coming.”
Martin woke the next morning filled with hopeful anticipation. The Savior was coming to visit him! He could hardly contain his excitement. He tidied his cellar house and straightened his workshop and looked out the window, watching and waiting for his special visitor. While Martin worked, he glanced up through the window. He noticed an old man scraping snow off the sidewalk. The man seemed very cold and tired. Martin left his workbench and walked up the stairs to the street. He invited the old man to sit by his fire. Martin warmed some tea for him, sat near him, and listened to the old man tell his life’s story. At last, when the old man left, he thanked Martin and told him that he felt refreshed in body and spirit.
Before too long Martin looked out his window again and noticed a woman trying to comfort her cold and hungry child. He noticed that she had no shawl and was wearing a summer dress on a cold and wintry day. Again, he climbed the stairs to the street and invited the woman and her child inside. The child was crying and could not be comforted. The mother’s hands, face, and feet were stiff with cold. Martin asked the young woman why she had no shawl to protect her from the cold. She said that her husband was a soldier, and she hadn’t heard from him in a very long time. Just the day before, she had sold her shawl to buy food. Martin reached for her child, held him, and played with him until the crying child began to laugh. Martin poured some hot cabbage soup for the woman to eat and rummaged through his trunk until he found a coat that would fit the little boy. When the woman stood to leave, Martin gave her some money to buy a shawl and made sure she had a place to stay.
The sun would set soon, but Martin was still hopeful. He looked through his window into the street and strained to see what was there. All he could see was an old woman selling apples. Just as Martin picked up the piece of leather he was sewing, a boy ran past the woman and stole an apple. The woman grabbed the boy by the hair and started yelling and beating him. Martin ran up the steps of his cellar, not even stopping to pick up the eyeglasses he dropped, and asked the woman why she was so angry. Martin talked to the boy and told him to apologize to the woman. Martin paid for the apple and gave it to the boy. He talked to both of them about forgiveness. Before long, the old woman and the boy walked away together, laughing and talking between themselves.
Martin still felt hopeful, but he knew that night had fallen and the Savior had not come yet. He sat at his table to read. Instead of turning to the page where his leather bookmark lay, he opened to another page and began reading. At the top of the page, he began to read, “And I was an hungered and thirsty, and ye gave Me to drink. I was a stranger and ye took Me in.” And a few verses later, he read, “Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”
Tolstoy closes the story: “And [Martin] understood that his dream had not deceived him, and that the Saviour had really come to him that day, and he had really received Him.”
…At home in a hidden-away corner, I have a small black walking stick with an imitation silver handle. It once belonged to a distant relative. Why do I keep it for a period now spanning more than 70 years? There is a special reason. As a small boy I participated in a Christmas pageant in our ward. I was privileged to be one of the three Wise Men. With a bandanna about my head, Mother’s piano bench cover draped over my shoulder, and the black cane in my hand, I spoke my assigned lines: “Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.”I vividly remember the feelings of my heart as the three of us “Wise Men” looked upward and saw a star, journeyed across the stage, found Mary with the young child Jesus, then fell down and worshipped Him and opened our treasures and presented gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
I especially liked the fact that we did not return to the evil Herod to betray the baby Jesus but obeyed God and departed another way.
The years have flown by, but the Christmas cane continues to occupy a special place in my home; and in my heart is a commitment to Christ.
For a few moments, may we set aside the catalogs of Christmas, with their gifts of exotic description. Let’s even turn from the flowers for Mother, the special tie for Father, the cute doll, the train that whistles, the long-awaited bicycle—even the books and videos—and direct our thoughts to God-given gifts that endure. From a long list I will cite just four:
The gift of birth
The gift of peace
The gift of love
The gift of life eternal
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[Song] We Three Kings of Orient Are
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[Scripture] Matthew 2:1
Behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem.
……………………………………………………………….
[Challenge – Seek & Find] – Long ago, prophecy told of the coming of a Messiah and a new star that would appear as a sign of His birth. The Wise Men had been seeking or looking for the sign of the New King long before they began their journey. Men of science studied the night skies and when the star finally appeared, they followed it. try to seek and find something out about Jesus today.
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given” (Isaiah 9:6). The Wise Men who travelled long distances to see the divine child, whose birth had been long foretold, crossed physical and social barriers to “come … adore him”
We find the real joy of Christmas when we make the Saviour the focus of the season. We can keep Him in our thoughts and in our lives as we go about the work He would have us perform here on earth. At this time, particularly, let us follow His example as we love and serve our fellowmen.
Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting. It is happiness because we see joy in people. It is forgetting self and finding time for others. It is peace because we have found peace in the Saviour’s teachings. It is the time we realize most deeply that the more love is expended, the more there is of it for others.
The story of the Magi is one of absolute faith. Their journey to first identify and then follow the star—a sign from God testifying of the birth of the Saviour—attests to their spiritual sensitivity. Led by the Spirit, they completed their arduous journey. While their identity is not known, their witness of the birth of the Messiah makes clear their holy and prophetic mission.
As the Christmas season envelops us with all its glory, may we, as did the Wise Men, seek a bright, particular star to guide us to our Christmas opportunity in service to our fellowman. May we all make the journey to Bethlehem in spirit, taking with us a tender, caring heart as our gift to the Saviour. And may one and all have a joy-filled Christmas.
This year I stopped to contemplate the kind of gift I’d bring
To lay at the nail-scarred feet of my Gracious Heavenly King.
He’s given my very life to me, and the blessings I hold dear,
But I can’t come up with anything appropriate, I fear.
Every time I give Him something, He more than doubles the return…
I gave to Him my weakness, His strength He then confirmed
Would always be there for me to securely hold on to.
I gave Him my shattered life – He gave me life anew.
I gave Him my pain and heartbreak, all that troubled my weary soul –
He gave me hope and happiness, and made my body whole.
I gave Him all my doubts and fears, the things that stood in the way
Of my daily service in His name – He made them go away.
I offered Him my feeble voice, to sing His praise in song –
He filled my heart with a melody, that will last my whole life long.
I offered Him my hands to serve, to help out those in need,
He gave me the talent to use these tools, so that I would succeed.
I gave Him my life completely, to show His light in a world of night,
He gave me a wonderful testimony, a way to share His light.
I offered Him my eyes to see all that they could take in –
He showed to me a world of fear, unhappiness and sin.
For every gift I gave to Him, He handed back to me
Instructions for their uses – endless possibility
To reach a world that needs to find the Saviour that I found,
So on and on, I serve, for to Him in love I’m bound.”
And lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, til it came and stood over where the young child was.
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[Challenge – Be a Guide] – When Jesus was born, shepherds and wise men followed a new star to Bethlehem, where he lay in a manger. Stars like this one are symbols of wisdom or guides. The Shepherds and the Wise Men used the star as a guide to find baby Jesus. Find one way today to be an example of Jesus that will show others the way to be like Him.
“A youngster walking through a dense London fog was carrying a lighted lantern.
“‘Guide me back to my hotel,’ said a voice from out of the fog, ‘and I’ll give you a shilling.’
“‘Yes, sir.’
“And so the boy, holding his lantern high, started walking in the fog and soon reached the hotel. As he paused, not one man but four stepped forward with a shilling. The other three had seen the light and followed without question. It is so with any who lead the way to truth and light” (See N. Eldon Tanner, “The Power of Example,” Ensign, Dec. 1981, 4).
It is amazing what darkness can do. It has an unsettling effect, altering our perception and creating a sense of unease. In a recent general conference, I noticed how many apostles alluded to the fact that we live in perilous times. Uncertainty surrounds us and often the dangers that are lurking around us are hidden from our view. The best way to move forward through these perilous times is to focus on the teachings of Christ. Through the scriptures and the living prophet we will be guided in the direction of safety. But is this all it will take for His light to shine through the darkest hours and inspire us to make good decisions?
Isaiah asks, “Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God. Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow” (Isa. 50:10–11).
“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.” —Isaiah 9:2
This scripture teaches a very important lesson, but it has to be learned line upon line. None of us wants to lie down in sorrow. To avoid that we have to understand what this scripture tells us to do. The first line describes a person who has learned about Christ and follows the commandments from the prophet, but who walks in darkness because he has no light. It seems that Isaiah gave us a contradiction. How could this happen? If we skip down a line, Isaiah makes it clear by painting a very interesting description. He describes a light that is manmade with sparks that the individual has kindled. This is a person who has obtained knowledge, but instead of relying on the light of Christ, has chosen to rely on his own light and strength.
One of the greatest struggles Christians through all time have faced is apathy. Going through the motions won’t prevent us from distancing ourselves from the Lord. It is important that we remain focused as to where our commitment and devotion lie. Elder M. Russell Ballard said, “As I read and ponder the scriptures and carefully consider the Lord’s counsel to His followers in every dispensation of time, it appears to me that the most important thing every one of us can do is examine our own commitment and devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. We must carefully guard against spiritual apathy and work to maintain the full measure of our loving loyalty to the Lord” (“How Is It with Us?” Ensign, May 2000, 31; emphasis in original).
To avoid walking in darkness, Isaiah encourages us to trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon our God. It takes a lot of faith to realize that we can’t do everything on our own and then to learn to trust in and be supported by the Lord. It is by doing this that we come to know His will for us. That knowledge will define our actions. When we trust Him enough to accept His will and learn to lean on Him for our support, then we will be filled with His light.
As we walk through one of the darkest times in history we would be wise to look to the Light. Then it will be said of us as it was of the people in Isaiah 9:2, “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.” That “great light” is Christ. He is the sure and steady beam that will lead us safely home.
“Yes, the larger Christmas story is clearly not over. It is not solely
about some other time, some other place, and some other people. It is
still unfolding, and we are in it!
Follow Your Star [by Lynn C. Jaynes]
“You bought what?”
“I know it sounds silly, but it’ll be a good thing. You wait and see.” It was dark when we loaded the five-foot Barbie dollhouse into my husband’s pickup. Was he was rolling his eyes? I was sure he was rolling his eyes. Not that I blamed him. It even sounded silly to me. What was a fifty-year-old woman doing buying a dollhouse? But it was all part of “following my Christmas star,” I just knew it. Sort of. Maybe. But it’s awkward explaining the intricacies of following a Christmas star to someone without sounding just a tad crazy. Let’s back up a bit, though. We read this about the original star-followers:
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. (Matthew 2:1–2)
It seems a little odd to me that only the Wise Men saw the star. Or perhaps only the Wise Men followed the star. Then again, maybe only the Wise Men knew what the star signified.
When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. (Matthew 2:3)
Ah-ha! So they did know what the star signified.
And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. (Matthew 2:4–6)
At this point it would seem the Wise Men told Herod of the star and brought others into the loop as well. But, as far as we know, the Wise Men were the only ones who went looking for the Christ child. Odd.
Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. (Matthew 2:7–12)
I don’t know why others didn’t follow the star. I don’t know what they saw or didn’t see, what they knew or didn’t know. All I know is that the Wise Men followed the star and that it ultimately brought them to Christ. One thing this story teaches is that the purest way to worship Christ is to identify and follow His star, which will lead us to Him. I’ve seen wise men and women on earth who have followed stars, but they didn’t ride camels and didn’t bear gifts of myrrh and probably couldn’t even spell frankincense—certainly couldn’t afford gold. Their names and gifts were not exotic but rather ordinary. I’ve learned a great deal from modern-day “wise men” who drew closer to Christ by finding and following their own Christmas stars.
I’ll tell you about one of these wise men. One year at the beginning of the Christmas season, my friend Tracey told me about an e-mail that had circulated at her work, asking for volunteers to ring the bell for Salvation Army donations. She was surprised by the request, assuming that bell ringers were usually people somehow connected with the organization. She considered the request, but because she wasn’t connected in any official way to the Salvation Army, she didn’t respond to the e-mail. After all, her daughter had a birthday party on the same day. How could she do both? She didn’t give it another thought.
As the appointed bell-ringing day drew closer, another e-mail was sent asking for a volunteer. Tracey mulled it over but, well, surely someone else would volunteer. Yet the thought nagged her until finally Tracey “saw the star” and recognized what it signified. The next morning she called the person who had sent the e-mail. Was he still looking for someone to help? He was. Tracey called her husband and gave him a choice—either ring the bell or supervise the birthday party. He chose the birthday party. At that point Tracey “followed her star” and rang the bell.
Tracey told me about her experience ringing the bell in the cold. She told of the things she learned and observed, of the people who greeted her, and of those who refused to make eye contact. With gracious tears she described the demeanor of those she had met and her own humbled attitudes and perceptions. In short, her star had brought her to Christlike service and to greater love and appreciation for her fellow man. Her star had brought her closer to Christ.
I want to be a wise woman, and I’m working on it. I looked in some of the usual places—picking up the shopping-list ornaments from trees in department stores, donating toys to charity bins, dropping a few coins into collection boxes, and joining organizations in providing canned goods to families in need. While all of these activities were good and brought a measure of satisfaction, it wasn’t until I really looked in some not-so-obvious places that I found my star—a role that perhaps I alone could fill, that would bring me closer to Christ. Hence, I was now the owner of a five-foot-tall Barbie dollhouse.
The star appeared so early in the season that I almost didn’t recognize it. It came in November. A co-worker told me she had a dollhouse she wanted to sell. It was five feet tall, in great shape, and had all kinds of accessories—tables and chairs, a refrigerator that opened with food on the shelves, a baby’s layette, pictures to hang on the walls, couches, beds, and all sorts of knickknacks. It was a very expensive set, and she was willing to let it go for a fraction of its original cost. As she described the dollhouse to me, I felt something. And I saw something—the star. So I told her I’d buy it.
On the drive home that night, I questioned my star sighting. I wondered if this was actually the star or not. Maybe I had misread the signs. What was I thinking? I had no idea what to do with this dollhouse. I knew no one who could use it. I tried to justify the purchase by convincing myself that simply buying it was enough—maybe the coworker just needed a little cash boost and this was the way to do it. But that didn’t feel quite right.
The dollhouse was an even bigger dilemma to explain to my husband. After all, where would we put a five-foot dollhouse? Our only granddaughter was still in diapers two thousand miles away and was more interested in dogs, horses, and her bottle than dolls. We had three grandsons and were expecting a fourth in February, but grandsons do not play with Barbie dolls. I thought about repainting the house with green and brown camouflage colors and stocking it with a few G.I. Joe action figures. My backup plan was to haul the dollhouse to Deseret Industries before the bishops and Relief Society presidents went there to shop for Christmas gifts to give to families in need. But I hated to do that. It felt like a cop-out. It seemed like a Wise Man making his way to Jerusalem and then sending an emissary to bear his gift to Bethlehem. That wouldn’t do. I wanted to come closer to Christ, not send someone else to do it for me. The more I thought about it, the more I knew that I had seen the star and that there must be some purpose for it, even if clouds were momentarily blocking its light. I wondered if this confusion was what the Wise Men might have felt when they showed up in Jerusalem and had to ask for directions. I needed directions.
I decided to call the Relief Society president in our ward and ask if she could help me out. When she told me she didn’t know of anyone who needed a dollhouse in our ward, I almost gave up. Following this star was not easy. I began to feel a little silly; I had bought a ridiculously large dollhouse and hadn’t the faintest clue what to do with it. I would just have to wait until the star shone a bit brighter.
I was still trying to figure things out a few days later when a woman who knew of my dilemma tapped me on the shoulder. Did I still have the dollhouse? Why, indeed I did. She knew of a family who could use it, and she arranged for the family to pick it up at my house. It was a family I hadn’t seen in years, and I had lost track of the children and their genders and ages. We arranged a time for the parents to pick up the dollhouse. At the appointed time, the parents came and were very gracious and grateful. There, I told myself. The deed was done. I supposed I should have felt overjoyed that the dollhouse had found a home. I should have had warm fuzzy feelings. But I was mostly just happy that the burden had been lifted and that my conscience was lighter.
The next morning, my husband and I were out and about and happened to catch sight of the same family who picked up the dollhouse. The whole family. There was the mom, the dad, two boys, and—most remarkably—four little girls. All under the age of ten.
And, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. (Matthew 2:9)
Four little girls. I had no doubt the star had pointed the way to this sweet family that needed a five-foot-tall dollhouse. My gift had found its home. I sat in awe and wonderment, feeling a small portion of the warmth the Wise Men must have felt. I too had come closer to Christ by following the light of a star.
Every Christmas now, I look for the star. I’m anxious to see what adventure it will bring me this year.
I’ve seen Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life at least a dozen times, but I’d never experienced a holiday miracle of my own until one dark December night a few years ago. On that almost-Christmas Eve I encountered an angel—a couple of them, in fact—and learned a lesson in faith, prayer, and God’s love that I will never forget. This is a true story. Only the names have been changed—but not all of them!
“It’s Christmas,” I reminded myself under my breath. “Peace on earth. Goodwill to men.” Supposing the heavenly exhortation extended to children as well, I looped the piece of cloth around a little shepherd’s head instead of tying it around his mouth as I’d have liked to.
It was already December twenty-somethingth, and I had yet to bake a tray of cookies or wrap a single gift. Instead, I’d spent most of the month writing a Christmas pageant, assigning parts, sewing and refurbishing costumes, building a stable, affixing a star in the cultural hall firmament, and directing twenty-some kids who were all now sugar-filled and giddy at the thought of Santa’s imminent arrival.
Despite being on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I was pleased. It was our night of nights at last, and we were ready. By the time the bishop stood to welcome the audience and announce the opening prayer, the set was decorated, the choir assembled, and the characters in place. Everyone and everything looked wonderful.
Having just completed my last task—shoving a crown on a wise guy’s little head for the umpteenth time—I slumped against the wall in the back of the cultural hall to enjoy the fruits of my labors. Just then a door flew open and an excited, windblown little girl ran into the room and grabbed my hand with her icy fingers. It was Earlene. As if the name alone wasn’t enough for a ten-year-old to contend with, this little girl was painfully thin, wore thick glasses, and had incredibly prominent teeth. She also had one of the strongest, sweetest personalities I’d ever encountered. I wondered if that was the reason she’d been sent to the family she had—one that seemed to have more than its share of trials in life.
“How do I look?” she asked breathlessly. “Where do I go for my part?”
She looked like she’d just tumbled off a hayride, but I didn’t tell her that. Nor did I mention that she might have known what was going on if she’d made it to even one practice.
After assuring Earlene she looked beautiful, I nudged her toward a children’s choir that was assembled around the piano. At least I tried to nudge her. She wouldn’t move.
“No!” she cried, pushing her heavy glasses back up the bridge of her nose. “I’m an angel!”
People in the last few rows forgot that Brother Crawford was now pronouncing a blessing upon the proceedings and turned to look at us instead.
“You’re not an angel,” I whispered. I had no idea where she’d gotten the idea in the first place. Then I added encouragingly, “But you’re a very important part of the choir.” Never mind that she wouldn’t know any of the songs since she attended Primary too seldom to learn them.
I’d dragged her about six inches closer to the choir before she yanked her hand from mine. “You said!” she insisted. “You said in church that I’m supposed to be an angel!”
My mouth opened, but no words came out of it. I was trying to remember just what I’d said to her and when. I seemed to recall speaking to Earlene in the hallway a couple of weeks previously. I’d been in a rush to get to Sunday School before my students and had practically knocked her into a wall. Whatever I had said then had been an apology . . . and perhaps a platitude.
“You said I’m an angel!” Earlene wailed.
As the audience uttered a resounding, “Amen!” I hoped it was in response to the end of the prayer.
I looked down into two myopic little eyes and knew it was possible—probable, even—that I had called Earlene an angel. But I certainly hadn’t meant she was a Christmas-pageant angel. I’d meant she was a . . . well, you know.
Earlene didn’t know. She only knew that since I was director of the pageant, God had given me the right to appoint little girls to be His heavenly messengers for ten or fifteen minutes in that particular ward on that particular night. Clearly, being chosen as an angel for the Christmas pageant—or believing that she had been—was the best thing that had ever happened in her short and surely difficult life.
Earlene clasped my hand again with both of hers, and her eyes shone. “I’ve asked Heavenly Father every night to help me be a perfect angel in His pageant. He will help me. I know He will.”
The thought of Earlene’s sweet, fervent prayers brought tears to my eyes, but there was nothing I could do. The pageant would begin any second. I prayed for words to explain to the little girl that she had misunderstood, but there were no words in any language that could fix this. No matter what I said, Earlene would still believe in her heart that God had handpicked her to be an angel.
She looked from me to the softly-lit stage and back again, wondering when I’d produce that white robe and silver garland worn by the other pageant angels.
At any moment, the welling in my eyes was going to run down my cheeks. There was no doubt in my mind that this misunderstanding would drive her parents even further from the Church. Worse, might the awful disappointment cause Earlene to wonder if God heard her prayers? Would she now wonder why, if God did hear her, He would ignore her hopes and happiness . . . and at Christmas?
Despite my fears of a family’s impending apostasy and a child’s crisis of faith, I simply didn’t have an angel costume—or any way to come up with one in two minutes or less. My thoughts raced. Earlene wore a dirty orange sweatshirt and tattered blue jeans. No way could I slip her onstage with the robe-clad girls without evoking stares and giggles that would break her heart. I looked frantically around the room, hoping to spot a shirt or a sweater or anything white that I could strip off an unsuspecting ward member. While everybody looked festive, nobody looked angelic.
The Relief Society room was locked or I would have ripped the tablecloth out from under the pot of poinsettias and improvised. At that point I might have considered packing Earlene in snow, but we were in Arizona, so I didn’t have any of that either.
Heedless of Longfellow’s bells tolling despair back here in the corner, the pianist broke into “Joy to the World,” and the first narrator entered. The play had begun.
An awful understanding began to creep onto Earlene’s face. The census was going forth from Caesar Augustus, and she was going nowhere. “Hurry!” she said. “I need my costume now! I have to go be with the angels!”
I wanted to “go be with the angels” too, but my wish was metaphorical. I simply wanted to die before I had to witness the shattering of Earlene’s heart.
Just then, Sister Morgan appeared in a doorway not six feet from where Earlene and I stood. If she had been the angel Moroni materializing with a golden trump in hand, I couldn’t have been more surprised. In her hand was a hanger, and on the hanger was a clean, white angel costume that was exactly Earlene’s size.
Earlene had her shoes off, her jeans rolled to the knees, and the robe on before I managed to draw a single breath. With a dazzling smile on her face, she raced across the room and hoisted herself onto the stage. Although clearly surprised at her sudden arrival, one of the “regular” angels ripped half the garland from her own belt and used it to adorn Earlene’s long, hopelessly-tangled hair.
Angels are like that. Bless their little hearts.
When the program ended, I was still standing in the same spot, and I was crying in earnest. It was the best Christmas pageant ever. Mary and Joseph had made it all the way to Bethlehem without bickering as they had done in every rehearsal. The shepherds had neither dueled with their staffs nor played keep-away with their stuffed sheep. The Wise Men had found their way from the East without a detour to the drinking fountain. And above them all stood the angels—beautiful, bright, beatific—with Earlene in the very front. I will always believe there was a surreal glow—and maybe an extra angel or two—around her.
When I could speak again, I sought out Sister Morgan. Sue had no idea she’d just pulled off the biggest Christmas miracle since Clarence earned his wings. When I asked her where she’d come up with the costume, she reminded me that I’d given it to her daughter the year before. Only then did I remember being impressed to let the little girl keep the robe when she asked, but I certainly had never expected to see it again.
Several times during the year, Sue told me, she’d almost thrown away the angel costume, but something made her stuff it back in the closet instead of dropping it into the wastebasket. The same something had urged her to find it after dress rehearsal and wash and press it. In the end, she’d left it behind in her haste to get her children to the church on time, but that stubborn, blessed “something” intervened one last time. Sue had gotten up out of her seat, hurried home to grab the costume, and then returned just as the pageant began.
I was awestruck by the heavenly machinations. I had been prompted to give away a costume I wanted to keep. Sue had been impressed to keep a costume she didn’t want. These minor miracles, set in place hundreds of days before, wouldn’t impact the world. They were all for the benefit of one little girl—a child who loved her Heavenly Father and put her trust in Him. Because of her prayers, Earlene was a perfect angel that night. Or at least she was a pageant angel . . . with perfect faith.
The real miracle, of course, is the one of which prophets and apostles testify: the infinite love God has for each of His children. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said, “I do not know exactly how He does it, but I testify to you that He knows us and loves us individually and that He hears our prayers. My testimony is that nothing in this universe is more important to Him than your hopes and happiness.”
[Holland, Jeffrey R., “Considering Covenants: Women, Men, Perspective, Promises,” in Susette Fletcher Green and Dawn Hall Anderson, eds., To Rejoice as Women, Talks from the 1994 Women’s Conference (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1995), 96–97.]
I gained this testimony firsthand one beautiful, blessed near-Christmas night. Our Father—who loved us all enough to send His Son—loved odd little Earlene enough to send her an angel robe. He had known her prayers months and months before she uttered them and had set in motion a plan to reward her innocent faith before she exercised it.
And so it is with us. Each year when children sing, “Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay close by me forever, and love me, I pray,” I feel the warm, prickling confirmation of the Spirit and think of Earlene. I don’t know where she is now, but I suspect that she is still a perfect angel, still close to her Heavenly Father, and still looked over and loved by He who blesses each of us so perfectly.
I like to think that Earlene still has her white robe. I gave it to her, of course. It’s all she asked Santa for that night when she sat upon his lap. Besides, “something” told me that angel costume had been made and preserved and protected just for her.
Just like her.
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[Song] Hark the herald Angel’s sing / Gloria (In excelsis deo)
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[Scripture] Luke 2: 10
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy.
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[Challenge – Be Joyful] – In the scriptures it tells us that the angels and the heavenly hosts sang with joy at the good news of Jesus’ birth. angels are messengers from heaven that often bring joyful news. Angels told Mary and Joseph of their calling to be the earthly parents of Jesus. Angels announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. The angel is a symbol of dignity, glory and honour. At Christmastime, the angel reminds us that we are watched over by a loving Heavenly Father. Find one thing to be joyful about today.
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[Article/Story relating to the challenge]
Without Christ there would be no Christmas, and without Christ there would be no fulness of joy.—President Ezra Taft Benson
Christmas is another word for joy. Children and adults alike feel an extra measure of joy as they celebrate the birth of Christ. Each carol, wreath, and sparkling light recalls the majesty of the Son of God and His good tidings of great joy.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. —Luke 2:10
As a child, President Thomas S. Monson discovered the real joy that comes from giving.
He recalled a Christmas, probably in his tenth year, when he wanted an electric train more than anything else. He did not want the less expensive and easier-to-find wind-up train. He wanted a train that could be plugged into a socket and run by the wonder of electrical power.
The economy was still depressed at that time, and asking for an electric train was asking for a lot—probably even requiring financial sacrifice by his parents. Nevertheless, Tommy hoped and dreamed and, much to his surprise, found an electric train under the tree on Christmas morning. He immediately put the train together and operated the electric transformer. He loved watching the train go forward, then backward, and all around the track.
Hours later, his mother interrupted Tommy at play by showing him a wind-up train she had purchased for a boy named Mark Hansen who lived down the street. The train for Mark was not as sleek or as long as his train, but Tommy noticed an oil tanker car in Mark’s set that was unlike anything he had. Even though he had a better train set, Tommy began to feel envious of Mark’s oil tanker. Tommy pled with his mother to let him keep the tanker. She responded to his fussing: “If you need it more than Mark, you take it.”
President Monson recalled how he added the tanker to his set and felt very satisfied—at least for a little while. Later, he walked with his mother over to Mark’s home and presented him with the wind-up train, minus the oil tanker. Mark was thrilled with the generous gift. He put the train cars together and began playing with them. Then Tommy’s mother wisely asked, “What do you think of Mark’s train, Tommy?”
Tommy began to feel guilty about the tanker he had confiscated. He asked his mother to excuse him for a moment, and he ran home as fast as his legs could carry him. He detached the oil tanker from his set, along with another car from his own set, and ran back to Mark’s home.
Beginning to feel the joy of giving, Tommy burst through the door and said to Mark, “We forgot to bring two cars that belong to your train.” He gave Mark the oil tanker and another of his own cars and helped attach them to Mark’s set. President Monson remembers how he watched the trains go around the track and “felt a supreme joy, difficult to describe and impossible to forget. The spirit of Christmas had filled my very soul.”
The Christmas story is a story of a family that connects heaven and earth. Each member of Jesus’s earthly family—Mary, Joseph, and Jesus—stands as supernal examples of God’s Christmas gift to all mankind. The Christmas story should spiritually motivate us to emulate the attributes of this holy family. This family was unified in seeking God’s glory; unified in serving one another; unified in fulfilling God’s will; and unified in sacrifice, obedience, and love. This holy family provides us a pattern of attributes that, when emulated by our own families, will enable us to enjoy the same blessings of unity and love they enjoyed.
Christmas Angel [by Jeanette Miller]
As a child, I loved my younger brothers, David and Michael, but really wished I had a sister. This wasn’t the typical hope many girls have when they’re young; it was a longing so strong I couldn’t explain it. I’d often pester my parents with requests for a new baby sister, but it didn’t seem like it would ever happen. Mom didn’t feel like she could handle more children, and while David was adopted, her other two deliveries had been brutal.
So, in that secret place in my heart, I imagined a tiny porcelain figurine I had to be the sister I wanted. No more than two inches high, the figure was a sweet little girl kneeling with a blankie, looking cuddly and angelic. I’d take her off the shelf and hold her in my hand, envisioning the love a sister might bring. I knew she would love me and that I would love her back.
When I was nine years old, my mom announced that she was pregnant, and I was ecstatic! She knew how much I wanted a sister and even promised me that this baby would be a girl. In my youthful innocence, I never questioned her. I knew Mom was right! It wasn’t until years later that I learned about the recurring dreams Mom had had of a little girl with big brown eyes and soft brown curls. For over five years, these dreams had troubled her, not only because she didn’t feel capable of having more children or adopting again but also because we were all blue-eyed blonds. Even my father had had a few dreams of the same little girl, so they assumed the dreams were Heavenly Father’s way of letting them know Mom was supposed to have a baby girl.
My parents talked about girl names they liked and prepared for a baby girl to be born. If anyone even suggested it might be a boy, we got a little ruffled because we knew it was a girl—my longed-for sister. When Joseph was born, I was devastated. I wept inconsolably. But as soon as he came home from the hospital, I fell in love with him. I mothered him, changed his diapers, and often got up with him at night. I went as far as to hold up a hand to tell my mother “I’ve got him” when she’d come for him. I adored that baby boy.
It didn’t make any sense why Joey wasn’t a girl. Mom almost died giving birth to him. But in the hospital, while holding her new baby, Mom saw his little eyes look straight into hers and had a powerful spiritual experience. Joey’s adult spirit communicated to her, saying, “Please accept me. I cannot explain to you why I am not who you were expecting, but someday you will understand. Just please love me!” And we did love him, without exception.
Life progressed as usual for our family—we moved around a lot due to my dad’s work as an auditor and controller for Del Monte Corporation. We had already lived on a banana plantation in Guatemala and then in Puerto Rico before Joey was born. In 1979, we moved to Costa Rica, where Dad became the financial director for Bandeco (Banana Development Corporation), a subsidiary of Del Monte.
I was thirteen but still had my tiny figurine of the little girl, a tangible reminder of a never-ending wish. Every once in a while, I’d hold her in my hand with tender thoughts before placing her back in my room. In 1982, Mom had a hysterectomy, a final assurance that I’d never have a sister and our family was complete.
After summer vacation and our annual trip to California, I began my junior year of high school. One day when I came home from school, I found my mother crying, and I asked what was wrong. She told me something had happened that she hadn’t told anyone about yet. She’d been visiting an orphanage in Santo Domingo de Heredia with some sisters in our ward, our good friends Ella Mae Nájera and Joy Wingo. Joy had adopted a little girl in Utah and was hoping to find a second child to adopt, and Mom had gone along to help out at the orphanage and support her friend.
The orphanage was a small, two-bedroom house with five cribs in each bedroom. As Mom walked inside, she noticed a child still in her crib in the first bedroom. When she turned and looked into the bedroom, goose bumps prickled over her. There, in the crib, sat a one-year-old little girl with big brown eyes and soft brown curls! Mom learned that the little girl’s name was María de Los Angeles, which meant “Mary of the Angels.” She was called “Marielos” for short.
Mom tried to ignore the stunning resemblance to the little girl in her dreams from years before, but it didn’t work. “I just can’t stop thinking about her,” she cried in confusion.
My immediate response was, “Let’s adopt her!”—certainly not what Mom was hoping to hear. But when I suggested that she talk to Dad, she agreed. My dad, a quiet giant, who, in my eyes, could make anything right, simply said, “Well, let’s go see her.”
The next Saturday, my parents drove to the orphanage in Heredia. When they arrived, something amazing happened. Marielos and a few other children were playing with some of the people who were visiting the orphanage that day. As Dad came inside, Marielos turned and saw him. For a moment, their eyes locked. Then, with arms outstretched, she rushed into his arms with abrazos y besitos (hugs and kisses) and didn’t let go. It was love at first sight for them. A week later our whole family went to see Marielos, and the same sweet reception occurred. We were all enchanted with her.
I loved babies anyway, but I adored this little girl. She was the life of the orphanage—vivacious, happy, and full of personality. I used to hold one end of a sash with Marielos at the other end, following me around and giggling. When it was time to go, I didn’t want to leave her.
As we knelt around my parents’ bed for family prayers at night, we often had to count heads because it felt like someone was missing. Mom and Dad . . . me . . . the three boys . . . . We were all there. But it still felt like someone was missing. Could Marielos really be meant for our family? The thought was thrilling, overwhelming, and hard to believe all at the same time! But the more we prayed about it as a family, the surer we felt that this precious little girl was supposed to be ours. She was my sister!
As the holidays approached, we continued visiting the orphanage, expressing our deep interest in Marielos. But we were told she was not up for adoption and that we should forget about her. “Sería imposible,” they said. “You will only get hurt if your family continues to see her.” Foreigners were allowed to adopt only older children or siblings from the orphanages through the Patronato, the government adoption agency in Costa Rica. If Marielos were to be given to anyone, it would be a Costa Rican family. Forget her? That was the impossibility! Nothing could keep us from visiting this beautiful olive-skinned child who had captured our hearts. We loved her and believed she was meant to be part of our family.
When I was growing up, my Dad seemed invincible. He could do anything in his quiet strength: he was fluent in Spanish, well respected among his peers, and, at the time, the bishop of our Zapote Ward, Barrio Uno. I trusted him completely with the tremendous task of trying to influence the Patronato to reconsider Marielos’s case so she could be put up for adoption. Dad’s friend, Hernán Robles, the general manager of Bandeco, also began helping us. He knew a woman named Mabel, who was a council member for the Patronato and was on the adoption board. Mabel met with my parents and liked them. She said she would put in a “good word” for us and do all that she could to help us try to adopt Marielos.
One day while Dad was on lunch break, he told us that he had gone to the orphanage to see our little girl. She’d slept in his arms as he’d pled for Heavenly Father’s help, promising to do everything in his power to make Marielos ours. He began paperwork with the Patronato, but once again, we were informed that adoption was impossible.
December arrived and, with it, the holiday spirit. Fruit stands popped up on street corners, selling bright red imported apples. Families made preparations for traditional tamales steamed in banana leaves. And the arrival of the dry season brought warmer weather and the lure of sandy beaches for vacations. But that year our minds were focused in another direction, especially with the arrival of wonderful news: Marielos had been declared up for adoption! That Christmas held special meaning to us as we pondered the possibility of bringing home our little girl. It would make it the best Christmas of my life.
We eagerly waited for updates from Mabel about the adoption committee to see when they would review Marielos’s case and make a final decision. Although some committee members were opposed to and almost hostile toward us, we knew Heavenly Father heard our prayers, and we trusted Him to bring about a true miracle.
On December 14, Dad got a call from Hernán, who told him the committee had met. By a split decision, they had given Marielos to another family, an older Costa Rican couple with no children. The adoption was final.
There were no words to describe the shock and devastation our family felt. How could this be? It wasn’t right! She was mine—my sister! Those people couldn’t have her; she belonged with us. I knew that as well as I knew my own heart. How could Heavenly Father let this happen? I wondered. How could He do this?
I was wounded, distraught, and angry with God. Going to church on Sunday, I could barely choke out Christmas carols. My life had been destroyed. How could I sing, how could I go on when everything I’d hoped for had been taken away? I didn’t want to celebrate Christmas. But I still had to go through the motions with a cold, heavy heart. The worst thing I had to do was go Christmas caroling at two other orphanages with the Young Women . . . three days before Christmas. How could my heart take such pain, singing “Gloria a Dios” to those beautiful children who reminded me so much of Marielos? As Mom drove me home, we both wept over everything we’d been through. Nothing seemed to make any sense.
When we got home, my dad was quick to greet us at the door. He was acting a little funny. “I have a Christmas present that has to be opened early,” he said with a silly grin. “It’s in your room, Jeanette.” I didn’t know what Dad could possibly have bought that needed to be opened before Christmas morning. Shoes? Clothes? Certainly nothing that could compensate for the emptiness I felt. Mom followed me down the terrazzo-floored hallway to my bedroom. I peeked inside. There, in my bed, was a sleeping little angel . . . Marielos! I burst into tears of joy and confusion. What had Dad done? Had he stolen her? I could hardly believe she was there, her curly brown hair poking out of the covers. My baby sister was home . . . but how?
Dad explained that the Costa Rican couple didn’t want Marielos after all and had dropped her off at the Patronato offices. They claimed she didn’t “adapt.” Iris Brenes, the president of the Patronato, who had been so against us from the beginning and had negatively influenced the voting committee, had called my dad at work to say, “If you still want Marielos, she’s yours. But come immediately, or she’ll be taken back to the orphanage and you’ll never see her again.”
Dad dropped everything, enlisted the help of his secretary, Indiana, and raced through town to pick up our girl. Señora Brenes reluctantly conceded, “Well, Señor, some things are just meant to be.” Then she went into her office and closed the door.
I’d never felt this kind of joy before at Christmastime! Now I knew that Heavenly Father did listen to our prayers and knew all along that there was only one way we could get my sister; even though it didn’t happen the way we had planned, it was the way that it needed to be to make her ours.
In Costa Rica, Santa Claus doesn’t bring the Christmas presents; the baby Jesus does. And that was exactly how this gift had come. By heavenly miracles, we were given the best Christmas gift of my life . . . the brown-eyed angel who became my sister.
At Christmastime our thoughts often turn to the biblical account of the shepherds watching over their flocks. The shepherds’ scene is indeed symbolic: It brings to mind the care and loving concern with which our Heavenly Father watches over all of his children. And it helps to remind us that he sent his beloved Son—the Good Shepherd with an unparalleled, divine mission—to guide us back to him.
Many of our scriptures present types and shadows of the coming of Jesus, his mortal ministry, and his mission as the Savior of all mankind. Certainly symbolism is apparent in the many references to the Shepherd and the flock. Indeed, the Savior himself used these symbols often in his teaching.
The Good Shepherd
To introduce his mission among men, Jesus identified himself as the Good Shepherd: “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). A shepherd who owns the sheep not only loves them but will often risk his life for them.
In contrast to this true shepherd is one who does not really care for his flock, who just tends sheep for a living: “But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep” (John 10:12).
This may be an allegory about Satan, the wolf, coming in various ways to catch and to scatter the sheep. Here the hireling shepherd is one who gives way instead of resisting Satan’s temptations. But the Savior points out that he is the Good Shepherd and that he is ready to give his life for all of Heavenly Father’s children. This, of course, he actually did through his atonement.
In John 10:7, the Savior explains that it is through him, and only through him, that mankind can gain entrance into his Heavenly Father’s kingdom: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.”
There were two kinds of sheepfolds in Jesus’ time. One, a large building with beams covered with tree branches and straw, was used in the winter. In the summer and spring, an entire town’s sheep were kept in a large enclosure open to the sky but with walls high enough to keep predators out. At night all the individual shepherds brought their flocks to the large fold, and one man stood guard through the night.
Jesus used this metaphor to illustrate that he was the shepherd who took care of the sheep at night; he was the protector and guardian of the flock, and no man could come into the fold without knowing the gospel and knowing his relationship to his Father in Heaven. Indeed, Jesus is the gatekeeper, “and he employeth no servant there” (2 Ne. 9:41).
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[Song] Shepherd’s Pipe Carol
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[Scripture] Luke 2: 8
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
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[Challenge – Prioritize] – A Shepherd keeps his sheep safe and shows them the way to go. At Christmastime, the shepherd is a symbol of a kind and loving leader who , like Jesus, guides us in the way that we should go and although the shepherds were probably busy, they still took time to listen and left work to worship the saviour because they knew what was more important. Today try and think of the shepherds and the way they prioritized the saviour. Then think of a way we can put the Saviour as more of a priority in our lives.
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[Story relating to the challenge]
Lighting the Christmas Fires
Joni Hilton
Have you every wanted to impress company with a perfectly Christmasized house?
My brother-in-law and his wife were honeymooning in Hawaii, when storms, cancelled excursions, and even crummy hotel pillows made them decide to return early and join Bob and me in Los Angeles. It was a week before Christmas, and I was more than nine months pregnant (which is why I’d had to miss their wedding in Mississippi). When the newlyweds called, I probably didn’t sound very enthusiastic about their coming to visit, because what they didn’t know was that Bob was already over there (announcing a game show in Hawaii) and was planning to surprise them as a “waiter” at a restaurant the following night. Quickly, I called Bob, and he wasted no time letting the couple know he was right next door. Suddenly, their honeymoon was fun again (spent with Bob)! But then they all hopped on a flight to Los Angeles. Little did my in-laws know that their honeymoon disasters had only just begun.
Their flight was delayed, so they wouldn’t be arriving until 11:30 p.m. Nevertheless, I wanted them to come home to a cozy Christmas setting—a twinkling tree surrounded by gifts, sumptuous garlands, cinnamon simmering on the stove, Christmas music playing, and, of course, a roaring fire. Everything was perfect, and at 11:25 I decided to light the fire. This is one of the blondest things I have ever done. Bob had always been the fire builder—I’d never done it before. Nonetheless, I cranked on the gas, then went looking for the lighter-flicker thing. I found it a couple of minutes later and pointed it at the logs—then pulled the trigger.
KA-BOOM!
The entire room looked like a ball of flame. And it was a ball of flame, with me in the middle. The kids were asleep upstairs—thank goodness—and I somehow remembered to stop, drop, and roll. Which, at nine months pregnant, had to be a sight to see. I’ll bet whales beach themselves with more grace than that.
I patted out the flames on my head and clothing, said a quick prayer of gratitude, then surveyed the damage. First of all, the room reeked of burnt everything. Second, my hair was coming off in solid, tarry chunks. Then I discovered that my eyebrows and lashes were gone, and my nose was bright red. Yeah, yeah, Rudolph. Blah, blah, blah. So we had a theme.
I went outside to finish pulling all the burned hair off my head, then went upstairs to shower. By now my scorched fingers and nose were killing me, so I decided to get ice packs and go to bed. First I wrote a note, though, trying to explain the crispy, partially-bald wife, who smelled like ashes and was upstairs in bed waiting for Bob. (Burned nose hairs reek for days, by the way.)
A half hour later, they arrived, and I heard a voice declare that it smelled like someone had been toasting marshmallows. I crept from around the corner with my ice packs, trying to hide my head (not easy), and admitted my goof, which could easily have put me on the Darwin Awards list. Everyone sympathized with my injuries, but we did laugh—how could we not?
At that moment, feeling sorry for myself and embarrassed by the state of my home, I caught sight of the nativity scene on the buffet. As I looked at that reminder of Christ’s birth, it sunk in that cinnamon and fancy decorations really weren’t the reason for the season, after all. My guests weren’t here for the ambience; they were here to enjoy our company. Sometimes the Martha comes out in us instead of the Mary, and we almost forget that Christ—not Santa—is the center of Christmas. And I knew that Christ couldn’t care less if I was missing my eyelashes—He loved me regardless. And this love is what Christmas is really about.
Eventually my in-laws’ disastrous honeymoon ended in a happy marriage with only good memories and some great stories to tell about their honeymoon. But I’m still not taking any chances. I always let Bob light the Christmas fires.
Media link: [Shepherds learn of the birth of Christ ]
A few years ago in December, I took my four young sons to watch the dress rehearsal for our stake’s production of Saviour of the World: His Birth. The evening’s performance culminated three intense months for our family: my husband was portraying Joseph, and during the past several weeks of rehearsals, we had missed him.
Many times during those weeks of preparation, I had envied my husband’s role. A starring role seemed so much more exciting and important than a behind-the-scenes babysitter. I wasn’t proud of my feelings. I wanted to support my husband serenely, to bear with cheerfulness and patience the demands on his time. I knew many others who bore heavier burdens routinely—not for a matter of months, but for years. I prayed often to overcome my self-pity and my aspiration for a more visible function.
Heavenly Father answered my prayers more abundantly than I expected. Perhaps His sweetest answer of all came that night at the dress rehearsal. At the conclusion of one scene, the shepherds hasten to meet the Messiah. These shepherds have waited their entire lives for their Saviour’s arrival, and now they anticipate the unspeakable honour of greeting Him at His birth. But amid the scurry to embark on this journey of a lifetime, one shepherd remains still. His grandson calls out to him, “Grandfather, aren’t you coming?” His answer teaches a great lesson: “I’ll stay with the sheep.”
As I listened to these words at the dress rehearsal, in that moment I felt the love of the Saviour encircle me. My supporting role, which had once seemed menial, took on a greater significance. I knew my Heavenly Father wanted me to devote myself to the spirits He had entrusted to my keeping, just like that shepherd who stayed back so others could go see the Babe of Bethlehem. My children needed me at home more than I needed to be the one in a starring role on stage.
I put my sons to bed that night without the applause of an audience, but my heart held all the serenity, cheer, and patience for which I’d prayed. Though vain ambition might whisper, “Sheralee, aren’t you coming?” the Saviour of the world had given me the peace to reply, “I’ll stay with the sheep.”
I realized that I was like the broken sheep of my Nativity set.
The Christmas season began with the enjoyable busyness of shopping, baking, and decorating the house. I especially enjoyed placing my favorite Nativity set on prominent display on the fireplace mantel. Two days before Christmas, the house was abuzz with the gathering of children and grandchildren.
On the morning of Christmas Eve, I became concerned when I heard loud, accusing voices coming from the family room. I walked into the room to find a ceramic sheep from my favorite Nativity lying in pieces on the hearth. One of my grandsons had been admiring the Nativity, and he accidentally knocked the figure to the hearth. I could see his anguish as he apologized about the accident. I assured him that the sheep could be repaired.
Later, as I placed the mended sheep back with the other ceramic figures, the Spirit gently reminded me that I was very much like this sheep. I thought of the times when I had been broken through sin, sorrow, or suffering and needed to mend my spirit. I remembered how, during those times, the Good Shepherd took me up in His arms and carried me.
Prompted by this experience, I searched the scriptures for more about the Good Shepherd, and I rejoiced in the words of Isaiah: “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young” (Isaiah 40:11). I could not deny His love for me as I read that “he numbereth his sheep, and they know him; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd; and he shall feed his sheep, and in him they shall find pasture” (1 Nephi 22:25).
Ever since that Christmas Eve, the ceramic sheep has been a significant part of my observance of the Savior’s birth. Each time I place the broken but mended sheep next to the Christ child in the manger, I feel greater love for the Savior and His Atonement. I recommit to “follow the voice of the good shepherd” (Alma 5:57). I remember that the Lord is my shepherd and that I too need to remain close to Him, for when I am broken, I know He is there to help me mend.
Sweet are the words, “The Lord is my shepherd” (Psalm 23:1).
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
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[Challenge – Be Willing] – In the scriptures Jesus is called the lamb of God. This is because the lamb, or sheep, is a symbol of gentleness and patience. It is also a symbol of purity and sacrifice. Jesus was gentle, patient and pure. At Christmas, the sheep or lamb reminds us of sacrifice. we can sacrifice our time and give up doing things that are wrong so that we can be more like him. Sheep are known for their willingness to follow their master. So let’s find a way today to act without having to be told to do something good or helpful.
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[Story relating to the challenge]
A Gift for Jesus
Marilynne Todd Linford
A couple years ago at the BYU art museum, I saw a mural-sized painting—about seventeen feet wide by seven feet tall—by Brian Kershisnik. I sat and studied the setting and the figures of Mary, Joseph, the infant Jesus, two midwives, and a dog with her pups, all of which took up less than one-third of the giant canvas. I was delighted by the depiction, especially as my attention focused on the flowing throng of heavenly hosts that filled the rest of the painting. Angels of all ages were anxiously, joyfully—some tearfully, some jostling for a better view—observing the newborn Christ. I interpreted the angels to be premortal spirits who were able to witness and vicariously participate in this key moment in the world’s history by observing through the veil. I wondered if the artist drew himself as one of the more prominent angels, maybe the big one elbowing his peers for a better view. Perhaps in pre-earth life there was a random selection process, or even a Conference Center–ticket distribution system, whereby some of us received the opportunity to be a spectator. Or perhaps we all had the chance to catch a glimpse of the long-heralded arrival.
I hoped I’d been able to witness the fulfillment of the prophecy that “there shall a new star arise, such an one as ye never have beheld” (Helaman 14:5). Although I wouldn’t have been chosen for my current singing voice, I would have loved to be a member of the heavenly choir who sang the announcement of the Savior’s birth: “Glory to God in the highest” (Luke 2:14). How I would have enjoyed watching Mary’s and Joseph’s faces when the Wise Men “opened their treasures . . . [and] presented unto [Christ] . . . gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh” (Matthew 2:11).
As I sat pondering the ideas this painting kindled, I thought of Mary and the joyful gift she experienced as the Babe of Bethlehem was born. How much more joy she must have felt, years later, to see her Son as a glorified, resurrected being, the Savior of us all! I wondered if she knew in her lifetime that He visited His “other sheep” in what would become the American continent. How I would have loved to hover above that scene as reported in the book of 3 Nephi.
Somewhere along this domino trail of thought, I pondered on the fact that Mary’s Son, Jesus Christ, has given me the greatest gifts I will ever receive: the gifts of the Atonement and Resurrection. I became conscious (I’m sure to a very limited degree) that I have been a recipient of His goodness and mercy at every stage of existence, from eons before His birth to eternities beyond His death. He has been the giver, and I have been the receiver.
I wondered, Can a less-than-the-dust-of-the-earth human like me ever truly give anything back? Is it possible to give anything to Him who has everything and the capacity to give everything?
I knew others had asked themselves this question. Two examples came to mind. First I thought of a poem by Christina Rossetti: “What can I give Him, Poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb. If I were a Wise Man I would do my part, Yet what can I give Him? Give Him my heart” (In Jack M. Lyon and others, eds., Best-Loved Poems of the LDS People, 1996, 166–67). Next, I recalled Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s suggestion: “As you submit your wills to God, you are giving Him the only thing you can actually give Him that is really yours to give” (“Remember How Merciful the Lord Hath Been, Ensign, May 2004, 46).
I naively wondered how such a gift could be significant in the vastness of eternity. What would it mean to Christ? Then a scripture in 3 Nephi came to mind, and I realized that such a gift had been received by the Lord in Book of Mormon lands long ago, when our Savior appeared to a group of people in the New World following His Resurrection.
After suffering the pains of Gethsemane and Golgotha, the Lord visited his “other sheep” in Bountiful, and in a beautiful gesture of His love, He healed all those with physical, emotional, or spiritual wounds (Alma 7:11). I pondered the people’s response to this gift:
They did all, both they who had been healed and they who were whole, bow down at his feet, and did worship him; and as many as could come for the multitude did kiss his feet, insomuch that they did bathe his feet with their tears.” (3 Nephi 17:10)
Some time after the people’s expression of gratitude and reverence for their Savior, Jesus expressed sorrow as He recalled the contrasting cruelty and lack of faith He had experienced in Jerusalem. The scripture says He “groaned within himself, and said: Father, I am troubled because of the wickedness of the people of the house of Israel” (3 Nephi 17:14). Then He knelt and prayed words too sacred to record. “And the multitude did bear record . . . [that] the eye hath never seen, neither hath the ear heard, before, so great and marvelous things as we saw and heard Jesus speak unto the Father” (3 Nephi 17:15–16).
I thought of the disparity in experiences the Savior had had in Jerusalem and Bountiful. On one hand, the wickedness of the people of Jerusalem gave Him great sorrow. On the other hand, the righteousness of the people in the New World gave Him joy. Those who had mocked, scoffed, scourged, and nailed Him to the cross could not be more different from those who now bathed His feet with their tears. He wept for joy because of the righteousness of the people at Bountiful (see 3 Nephi 17:20–21).
Had I been a hovering, premortal spirit over this remarkable scene at the temple in Bountiful, I would have seen Jesus bid the multitude arise. I would have heard Him say, “Blessed are ye because of your faith. And now behold, my joy is full” (3 Nephi 17:20, emphasis added). Yes, mortals—mere mortals like you and me—can give the Savior of the world a gift. The faith-filled Nephites and Lamanites, by giving Him their loving hearts and obedient wills (both evidences of faith), gave Him joy! I like to think that if indeed I viewed that marvelous scene from beyond the veil, I also promised myself that when my turn on earth came, I would be a woman of faith who would also give Jesus Christ the gift of joy.
Media link: [What shall we give? Christmas Music Video]
Quote: [from His Christmas devotional ‘Christmas Love by President Thomas S. Monson]
“Finding the real joy of Christmas comes not in the hurrying and the scurrying to get more done, nor is it found in the purchasing of gifts. We find real joy when we make the Savior the focus of the season. We can keep Him in our thoughts and in our lives as we go about the work He would have us perform here on earth.”
The Perfect Christmas
[A story by Jennifer Moore]
“James, honey, don’t touch the Christmas decorations,” I told my two-year-old son for what seemed like the hundredth time. I moved him out of the way and rearranged my beautiful olive-wood Nativity on the coffee table, making sure to return each figurine to its exact position to balance out the grouping: Mary and Joseph in the middle, next to the manger; Wise Men on one side; and shepherds on the other. Luckily, there were a few sheep to keep it symmetrical. I turned one or two and straightened the table runner they sat on.
Holding on to James’s hand, I helped his chubby finger point to the different characters as I told him the names and listened to his young voice and stilted words as he repeated them back as well as he could. When I pointed to the infant lying in the carved wooden hay, James said, “Baby Jesus” before I prompted him, and I made a mental tally mark on my list of things to do to create the perfect Christmas.
Teach child the true meaning of Christmas. Check.
I picked James up and carried him out of the living room, reminding him that this room wasn’t for playing. I glanced around quickly to make sure he hadn’t disturbed anything else in my magazine-perfect decorated house. I headed off to find something to distract him and keep him away from the Christmas decorations.
This would be the first year my husband and I weren’t making the drive from Cedar City to Salt Lake a few days before Christmas to attend all of the family parties and to spend Christmas morning at one of our parents’ houses. We’d decided that we’d be the parents this year and have our very first Christmas at home to establish our own traditions and memories.
As the young mother of two-year-old James and three-month-old Ben, I was determined to make it the most perfect season ever. We’d put lights on the house in October before the first big snowstorm, and I’d hung a wreath with hand-sewn plush snowmen on our door after Halloween.
The day after Thanksgiving, we’d assembled and decorated a brand-new Christmas tree, upon which we’d hung our yearly “special” ornaments. Beneath the tree, gifts waited, covered in coordinating wrapping paper and tied with elaborate bows. CDs of holiday music rotated on a two-and-a-half-day basis so we would be able to hear all of them, and I figured out that if we watched one Christmas movie every other night, we would make it through my stack of VHS tapes before Christmas Day.
I’d worked tirelessly for weeks, sewing a tree skirt to match the tea towels hanging on the oven door and the throw blanket arranged on the back of the sofa. With each family member in mind, I’d chosen our stockings carefully, and they now dangled from pegs in the family room, precisely six-and-a-half inches apart. The house smelled like a blend of pine- and cinnamon-scented Yankee candles. Christmas quilts and pillowcases adorned each bed, and garlands and bows ensconced every shelf, railing, windowsill, and doorframe.
The perfect Christmas would take a little extra work, but it would be worth it when we looked back at all the amazing memories we were making.
A few days after the Nativity incident with my son and a flurry of holiday activities later, I was in the kitchen mixing up icing for gingerbread houses when I again heard the sound of the wooden figures sliding across the coffee table. I wiped my hands on my Christmas apron and hurried into the living room. James was moving the Nativity around again, and there was a crumpled piece of toilet paper draped across baby Jesus. I looked around, relieved that nothing else was out of place. Lifting James out of the way, I repositioned the figures and picked up the scrap of toilet paper. Play group would arrive at any moment, and I still needed to get all of the gingerbread-house candies ready.
I plopped James on the counter, where I could keep an eye on him, and scolded him again for playing in the living room. I reminded him that the Christmas decorations weren’t toys.
As we completed one activity, my mind was already racing to the next. Lists and planning and preparations were keeping us organized. The holiday season was rolling like a well-oiled machine.
I was even ready with family home evenings to last the entire month, complete with treat, activity, lesson, and song. My Young Women class had planned service projects; I’d made treats enclosed in cellophane and ribbon for my husband’s office. I had gifts arranged in a fabric-lined basket on a table inside the front door for my visiting teaching ladies, the Nursery leaders, and my husband’s home teaching families, and homemade jam wrapped and tagged for our neighbors sat in a basket next to the gifts.
I’d purchased matching sweaters from Baby Gap months earlier for James and Ben and had taken pictures of them in front of the tree to include in our family letter. I’d mailed the cards on December 1 and followed them a week later with the packages we were sending to relatives.
We’d been to the Christmas lighting ceremony on Main Street, written letters to Santa, and driven up to Leigh Hill to see the light display and get a candy cane, but there was still plenty more Christmas celebrating ahead. If we were going to do every single thing on the list, we needed to stick to our schedule.
The Saturday before Christmas, our day started early. After updating our three advent calendars, I dressed the kids in matching outfits, hurried to check Walmart and Kmart just to see if any Tickle Me Elmos had come in the night before, then drove down to St. George to get the kids’ pictures taken with Santa at the mall. We were all exhausted, but the ward Christmas party that night would be so marvelous we couldn’t miss it.
Some of the stakes in Cedar City had pooled their Christmas-party money and, in a warehouse by the airport, had built a set that looked like a small Jewish town. The wards took turns having their Christmas parties in “Bethlehem.” The young men dressed up as Roman centurions, we all had “coins” to pay our taxes and buy dinner, and everyone was supposed to come in costume.
I’d glued the invitation for the party in our Christmas scrapbook and had surrounded it with die cuts of a Middle-Eastern cityscape, a Christmas star, and palm trees. A rectangular piece of sand-colored paper measuring exactly four-and-a-half by six-and-a-half inches waited to frame the picture of our family at “Back to Bethlehem” night. Even though my husband was out of town, I was still determined to complete the page with the perfect picture of my boys and me in our costumes.
I wore a bedsheet over my shoulder and tied around my waist with a belt, and covered my hair in a scarf. Ben was easy to wrap in blankets, and then I turned my efforts to James, who had fallen asleep on the stairs.
I woke him up and put him in his bathrobe, but when I tried to tie a pillowcase around his head with a strip of fabric, it was too much, and he started to cry (though anyone who has had a two-year-old knows that cry is a mild term). I decided to worry about the pillowcase when we got to the party.
Simply put, that night was a disaster. Sitting on a cement floor, trying to juggle a colicky newborn and a two-year-old who was melting down at the idea of eating pita bread, hummus, and olives was a low point, to say the least. Realizing I hadn’t even remembered my camera and knowing this tantrum was only going to get worse, I folded the blanket, and the three of us left the party, worn out and frustrated.
James was too wound up to fall asleep, so I sat him on the couch to calm him down while he watched Elmo Saves Christmas, even though it was out of order in the VHS stack.
Just as Elmo and Santa were singing “Keep Christmas with You All through the Year,” I put the cinnamon rolls and wassail for Sunday morning into the fridge and went to get James. It was hours past bedtime, and we still had to tear a ring off his paper chain and read a Christmas story.
James wasn’t on the couch, where I’d left him.
I heard the scrape of wood, and the irritation that I’d felt all evening surfaced. The night had been ruined, and I was completely drained. I closed my eyes. This wasn’t going to be pretty.
I stormed up the stairs to the living room. When I reached the doorway, I drew in a breath to unleash my anger, but what I saw stopped me cold, and my heart felt like it had been smashed in the Grinch’s measuring device. I remember the scene as clearly as if it had happened a moment ago.
In the glow of the Christmas-tree lights, James was carefully pushing all the wooden figures closer together until they surrounded the baby Jesus in a tight circle, and he was saying their names in toddler grunts that only moms understand. He lifted the baby from the manger and, with his chubby hands, clumsily wrapped a piece of toilet paper around the mostly naked, little carved body, rocking him and humming a tuneless song before carefully setting him back down.
I stood stunned in one of those moments of clarity, where it was like someone had handed me a new pair of glasses and suddenly the world looked different. My gaze moved around my perfect house to the tree and the quilted throw pillows, the nutcracker on the piano, the bows, the garland. Everything suddenly seemed garish and excessive.
I lifted James onto my lap, and we sat on the sofa quietly as the Christmas spirit filled the room. The real Christmas Spirit. The very thing I’d tried to create through months of planning and hours upon hours of work. The feeling was something that couldn’t be manufactured. It was as simple as just sitting quietly.
I’d discovered what had been missing from our perfect Christmas: time to actually remember why we celebrate Christmas in the first place. It wasn’t a chance to show decorating skills or the ability to find the perfect gift. Christmas wasn’t about making traditions just for the sake of crossing them off the list. I felt squirmy, a little sick, and a lot ashamed as I considered the past few months and how seldom I had actually remembered Christ as a part of my perfect Christmas.
The next day, I helped James choose fabric to make a blankie for the wooden baby Jesus, just as we had a few months earlier for his little brother, Ben. I cringed inside when he picked blue fabric with a pink floral pattern but took a calming breath and cut it into a small rectangle, which he carefully tucked around the little figure.
In a book, this story would wrap up neatly. This is where I’d say that I immortalized the moment by snapping a picture and putting it in the “Bethlehem” page of the Christmas scrapbook or how, from that day forward, I learned my lesson and the holidays have been calm and easy ever since, but neither of those is true.
I did learn something though. And sixteen years later, that experience still rates among one of the most dear to my heart. Every year at Christmastime, I pull out that mangy scrap of ugly fabric and place it on baby Jesus to remind me of the moment when a two-year-old taught me a powerful lesson—the lesson I should have taught him. He showed me the importance of slowing down and being grateful. And even though traditions can be distracting, when our hearts are in the right place, traditions make the holidays special and help facilitate the Christmas spirit.
Elder James Moore is spending his first Christmas away from home this year, serving the Lord as a missionary. I know he is sharing the same Spirit he felt as a little boy and is teaching the people in the Washington Everett Mission that the greatest Christmas traditions of all are also the simplest and center around our Saviour’s love.
The sun had set long ago, but spotlights cut through the darkness as the soundtrack of the pageant boomed over loudspeakers. The atmosphere was alive with joy and whispered anticipation. My costume clung to my back and shoulders as I hiked up the hill through the muggy summer air, fireflies dancing in the trees beyond the path. I cut behind the stage toward the trail leading away from the dressing rooms. It was July in New York, and I was in full costume as a cast member in the Hill Cumorah Pageant. I had a lot of things on my mind, but Christmas certainly wasn’t one of them. At least, not yet.
Like most others in the cast, I played more than one part. I had just traded my elaborate dance costume for plain, Native American–style clothes in preparation for my favorite scene: the Savior’s visit to the Nephites in America. But I needed to come onto the stage from the far side of the hill, so I walked. I crept around the back of the stage, out of sight of the thousands of people who had come to see the production. The rush of performing in front of such a large crowd combined with the physical exertion of the climb made my heart race.
Then I glanced up at the stage—or what I could see of it from below—and saw something that surprised me. It was a perfect living Nativity: a beautiful young woman with long brown hair knelt on the stage with a baby doll in her arms, a young man standing sentinel behind them both. The spotlight lingered briefly on the family as the narrative described Nephi’s vision of the birth of the Savior, then the lights went down. The actors stood, leaving the stage and heading back the way I’d just come.
The encounter gave me pause. In my mind, Mary and Joseph belonged in December, in the cold and the joy of the holiday season. Seeing them portrayed in the heat of the summer felt out of place, like watching football in June or eating pumpkin pie on Memorial Day. But they brought an undeniable spirit of Christmas to this hot summer day I was spending in New York, even if I didn’t fully understand why.
The line between reality and imagination blurred often during these performances. I knew the Mary and Joseph I’d seen were part of a dramatization, but the feelings the encounter created in me were genuine.
It had happened before, during rehearsals for the scene I was about to perform in.
Preparing for the scene portraying Christ’s visit to America had been a poignant experience. Even though it was sweltering hot at midday and the college student walking across the stage was not actually the Savior, it was easy to get wrapped up in the emotion of the thing. Even now, waiting backstage in costume, I felt joy and anticipation. When I was finally onstage and saw the actor portraying the Savior descend from high above, I didn’t have to remind myself to kneel in reverent adoration. In my mind, it felt real.
Do you remember me? I asked in my mind. Do you remember all the times I’ve prayed and asked for your peace? Do you remember how I pleaded for help and forgiveness through the Atonement? Do you recognize me? The moment broke my heart open and incited self-reflection that I had not experienced before. It felt sacred and peaceful.
Sacred, like the nearby grove I’d visited. It was the place where my religion began, and I knew the origin story by heart. But I’d never been to the place where it had all happened—where God the Father and the resurrected Christ appeared to Joseph Smith nearly two centuries ago—and I was happy to be there. Like Christ’s appearance in the Americas when He came to the Nephites, He had come to this grove to open the final dispensation and answer young Joseph’s important questions. I found a quiet place to sit and read from Joseph Smith’s account of the First Vision. The Sacred Grove was appropriately named. I knew the Savior had been there, and the place felt hallowed, serene. This trip to New York, it seemed, had something to teach me about the Savior and His mission.
I saw Mary and Joseph in their place again the next night, a little reminder of where it all began. But even then, I still didn’t get it.
* * *
For a while, Mary and Joseph remained part of Christmas celebrations—more important, I knew, than the cookies and the caroling, but essentially in the same category. Every year on Christmas Eve, my family and I ate, sang Christmas carols, acted out the Nativity, read from Luke 2, and went to bed to await the long-anticipated Christmas morning. The story of Christ’s birth was an integral part of the celebrations, but it never really touched me again like it had during the Pageant.
Then came Christmas 2013: my first away from the place I’d always called home. More than five years had passed since that summer I spent in New York. I now had a husband, a barely two-year-old daughter, and a brand-new baby. We were young, and because our little family had recently moved twelve hundred miles away from our families, we spent the holiday on our own. It was quiet.
I’d never experienced a Christmas with so little food, so little celebration, and so little noise. When my children went to bed, it was just my husband and me in our little living room. It was cleaner and more comfortable by far than the stable I’d read about every Christmas Eve, but for the first time, I really thought about Mary and Joseph and what that very first Christmas might have been like.
I even had a baby, which seemed appropriate. When I held her that Christmas, I wondered what she would become. I wondered what she would do with her life and what her Heavenly Father had planned for her. I decided it was probably something big. That made me wonder why I was chosen to be her mom and what God needed me to do to raise her. And then I thought about Mary.
That Christmas, she became something more to me than a supporting character in the brief account of the Savior’s birth. I saw her as the woman chosen to raise Him, to love Him, to prepare Him for His ministry and His ultimate sacrifice for all mankind. She bore the Savior before He bore us; she carried Him before He carried us; she loved Him as He loves us.
Without Mary and without Joseph, the Savior would not have lived to fulfill His ministry in Jerusalem or to die for the sins of all people. Without the body Mary helped give Him, He never could have died, He never could have resurrected. He never would have appeared to the Nephites in America or to Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove or to anyone anywhere else. All of it was possible because of Mary. She was there for the beginning of the Savior’s story, and she played an important role in everything that came after.
The Savior said once that He was “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end” (3 Nephi 9:18). This moniker is appropriate for the Savior on a number of levels, but in a way, it can also be applied to His mother, who was with Him at the beginning of His life and at the end. All year long, Christians worldwide celebrate the life of Christ. We learn about His ministry, celebrate His triumph over sin and death, and try to emulate His sinless life. But at Christmas, we also remember Mary and her baby boy.
Now when I remember those summer nights I spent in New York so many years ago, I remember the girl who was Mary and the boy who was Joseph. On the quiet Christmases I’ve spent away from my big family, I’ve remembered Mary and Joseph, who traveled to a distant country and were alone when “the days were accomplished that she should be delivered” (Luke 2:6). Because of the lessons of that muggy July, every cozy Christmas means something more.
Because Mary was delivered that night, all of us can be delivered too.
And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the lord; be it unto me according to thy word.
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[Challenge – Be Thoughtful] – Mary is the mother of Jesus. The scriptures tell us that Mary was ‘highly favoured’ for her faith in God. Mary received a visit from the angel Gabriel, who told her that she had been chosen to be the mother of the Saviour of the world. She cared for Jesus His whole life, and was there when Jesus died. At Christmastime, Mary is a symbol of a faithful mother’s courage and love. Mary pondered things in her heart and was very thoughtful. Take some time out of today to be thoughtful of others. Ponder ways in which you can show that you care.
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[Story relating to the challenge]
Hand-Drawn Marshmallows and Other Christmas Miracles
by Meg Johnson
I cried the hardest my first Christmas in a wheelchair. I’m not saying that because this is a Christmas story or because I am trying to milk some emotions. It really was the hardest time for me that year. I had been paralyzed in a hiking accident that March and released from the hospital in June—released was the word they used, but I was, from that time on, wheelchair bound. My legs wouldn’t move. My stomach and back muscles didn’t work. And my hands were lifeless and floppy.
The whole year was hard, don’t get me wrong, but Christmas brought a whole new level of challenges. I have a small family, but we are big on creativity, so for Christmas, we were all over the handmade cards, hand-crafted candy, hand-painted . . . stuff. It was all about the handmade, but the trouble was, my lifeless and floppy hands didn’t work.
I sat by myself with a tube of wrapping paper, some tape, and a store-bought gift in a small box. I refused help from everyone; I wanted to do it myself. And all by myself. I had lost so much independence being paralyzed that I fought for every morsel I could get. It must have been an hour of ripping (scissors were out of the question; how could I use those with no finger movement?) and taping. The result was a tape-covered, squished ball of Christmas paper. Independence isn’t always beautiful.
Everyone said I should be proud as they set it under the tree next to the other gifts tied with multilooped ribbons, glittery craft sticks, and origami birds. That was seriously how my family wrapped their gifts.
After that initial Christmas disappointment, I worked hard the next year and, one by one, relearned to how to tape and tie and use scissors (cue the Hallelujah chorus). By the next Christmas, I was wrapping gifts almost as beautifully and just as independently as I’d done before my accident.
And I was regaining more independence in other areas of my life too. That very next Christmas, I drove myself to the Ross department store in Centerville, Utah. There was a light snow, and I was going Christmas shopping . . . by myself! It was my very first time driving alone anywhere at all since I’d been paralyzed. At first it took a long time to get myself, meaning my ragdoll body, into the car, so people always had to help me and were always, always with me. But I found a car I could put my wheelchair in and lift myself into, and after a long, hard road (no pun intended) of test drives and a whole lot of practice, I learned to drive it with the use of hand controls.
As I drove to Ross to shop by myself, my heart soared in the sheer indescribable feeling of regained independence. Truly, I don’t know how to describe it, but I think you can slightly compare it to the feeling you’d have if you grew so big that you could step off the earth, turn around, and hold it in your hand.
As I got out of my car and into my wheelchair at Ross, the tiny snowflakes felt like congratulatory kisses on my face. I slammed the door shut in total triumph. I raised both my hands into the air and exclaimed victoriously, “I’m alone!”
My enthusiasm must have frightened some passing shoppers because an elderly couple stopped to see if I was okay. They were very concerned and offered to stay with me since I was apparently “alone.” I hadn’t realized that maybe some little girl in a wheelchair in the snow, staring at her car and shouting, might need a little supervision.
My car became my passport to anything I ever wanted. Anywhere. I felt so liberated. Wheelchair bound now meant only that I couldn’t stand, not that I couldn’t move.
And I was on the go. I went back to college. I joined the wheelchair rugby team. I competed at Ms. Wheelchair America. I got married!
My husband, Whit Johnson, was a former boyfriend who heard about my accident and visited me in the hospital several times. After I was released from the hospital, he drove me to therapy and took me to young single adult activities and firesides. We watched movies together and talked. And then he proposed to me late one night in October with pumpkins he’d carved to say, “Meg, will you marry me?”
A few weeks before we were married, Whit and I were sitting on the couch watching a movie. We held hands but not really. My paralyzed fingers just flailed. I pushed our hands into the black leather of the couch so my fingers would wrap around his, but as I did, my heart sank. What kind of subpar wife was I going to be? I couldn’t even hold his hand. How could I do the other things wives did? I couldn’t believe he was going to marry me. Surely he deserved someone better. Someone more able.
I looked up to him and asked, “Doesn’t it bother you that I can’t walk?” I knew it did. How could it not?
He was quiet for a few moments before he responded. “Yes,” he said. “But not as much as it would if I couldn’t be with you.”
My husband married me as I was, wheelchair and all, on February 29, 2008, four years after I was paralyzed. We were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple for time and all eternity—and they don’t make wheelchairs in eternity.
I know we’re not your normal couple, but really, who is? Everyone has disabilities they work through and weaknesses they are trying to overcome. In that respect we’re not that different from any other couple. We just pretend like I’m not in a wheelchair, and it really doesn’t seem like I am. We try to do things the normal way. My husband works and fixes stuff in our home. I make breakfast, dinner, and sometimes lunch. I visit teach as well as do laundry, and we take Christmas gifts to the neighbors.
My husband likes to adopt the idea that you don’t want to miss somebody, so you probably shouldn’t take gifts to anybody. That way nobody feels left out. I like to take the stance that if you give a gift to every single person in the entire neighborhood and surrounding streets, you don’t miss anybody.
Needless to say, my husband thinks I overdo it. I think he might be right, but that still doesn’t stop me. I love being able to show a little love for my ward family and neighbors by giving them something I’ve made.
We were still essentially newlyweds the Christmas I decided to make small marshmallow treats for the neighbors. When I say marshmallow “treats,” I really just mean marshmallows. I’m not a very fancy baker like all the amazing Pinterest wives, but I am pretty artsy, and I like to draw, so I drew small Christmas pictures on each marshmallow with edible markers.
My pictures weren’t Rembrandts, but each one took me several minutes. To draw, I wove the edible marker between the fingers of one hand and held the marshmallow up with the other. The pictures were small, so I had to hold them close to my face so I could see what I was doing, but because my tummy and back muscles don’t work, I was merely balancing my upper body in place while I drew each picture. I didn’t want to move and ruin the drawings, so I had to hold my breath as I flexed all the rest of the working muscles in my shoulders, neck, and face so I could create these mini edible masterpieces.
I had about five marshmallows in each bag and over forty bags, so it was a lot of breath holding and breaks. But I got them all done and wrapped them up in Christmas bags with Christmas bows. I was so pleased with myself. I mean, there weren’t any glitter sticks or origami birds, but I’d done them myself, and they looked pretty dang decent.
It was a cold night a few days before Christmas when my husband was loading all of our marshmallow treat bags into my Subaru Baja for delivery. We had plenty of snow, and it seemed like the perfect Christmas night to deliver our hand-drawn Christmas treats to our neighbors. My husband had turned on the car and turned up the heat so it would be nice and warm for me when I got in, which was nice because something weird about being in a wheelchair is that I cannot control my temperature. It was actually the first ability to go when I broke my neck. I just stopped being able to sweat or warm up my body. I can’t control it at all; whatever the weather is around me is what my body tries to be. I am literally cold blooded. So my husband was trying to make it easy for me so I could go from my warm house to my warm car and not be chilled while we delivered our special gifts.
When everything was finally loaded (and hopefully not melting in the full-blast heat), my husband came back in for me. We did not want or need to bring my wheelchair along, so he was going to pick me up and put me on his back, piggy-back style.
I kind of love to ride on his back and remember what it feels like to step and move with legs beneath me. I also like to see from his viewpoint. I’m so short, I don’t get the visual standing people get. However, maybe that’s not such a bad thing because when he picks me up, it reminds me that I need to dust. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Anyway, my husband opened the front door wide so we could walk out once he picked me up, but as he did so, he saw our car, our nice warm car with all the Christmas bow-tied hand-drawn marshmallow gifts, driving down our quiet neighborhood street. Without us.
Time seemed to stand still. Then, in slow motion, my husband turned to me, his eyes as wide as the distance between us and our car, and said, “Our car’s been stolen.”
Our car. My car. The only car I could drive. The only car that could fit my wheelchair. My passport to the outside world. My element of independence had been taken. It was long gone in the dark December night.
And so were all of the hand-drawn marshmallow gifts.
The open door let in a Christmas chill as my husband and I stared at each other, neither one of us daring to look away, or daring to even blink, both searching for some explanation, some rationale, but finding nothing except what surely was a mirrored image of our own wide-eyed, disbelieving look.
We were on the verge of tears, and we knew it, but before any could fall, I quickly said, “We can cry, or we can laugh, but there’s no going back.”
So we laughed. And we laughed hard. And we laughed so hard we cried.
We had a hard time calling the police because they didn’t take our call very seriously. We just kept laughing. They kept asking if it was a joke. Yes, we supposed it was, but the joke was on the thieves who probably don’t even need a wheelchair-accessible car. Or hand-drawn marshmallows.
Our car being stolen was quite the Christmas sensation. Our families, our friends, and the entire community was in an uproar. The newspaper headlines read:
“Thief Steals Woman’s Specially Modified Car”
“Grinch Steals Paralyzed Woman’s Specially Modified Car in Ogden”
“Grinch Steals Disabled Woman’s Car and All Her Handmade Gifts”
We got phone calls, e-mails, and letters from friends, family, and strangers whose hearts went out to us that Christmas. Our names were put on multiple temple prayer rolls. Facebook exploded with people sharing in the loss of the car and my independence.
My husband and I continued laughing through it all. Our newlywed salary didn’t give us a lot of options except to just start saving our pennies for another wheelchair-accessible car.
That Christmas we adopted my husband’s philosophy that if you don’t give any of your neighbors gifts, nobody feels left out.
Late into the night on Christmas Eve, Whit and I cuddled close on the couch. We were sure Santa Claus couldn’t fit a new car, or any other element of independence, into our stockings, but we enjoyed the flashing lights on the tree.
My husband squeezed me tight and said he was glad I hadn’t been in the car. I squeezed him right back and said I was glad he hadn’t been in the car. We both agreed that they could take the car, the independence, the treats, the time, and the effort, but there was nothing in the car we would miss this Christmas.
It was okay that our car, my car, had been taken. As I laid my head on my husband’s chest and felt him breathe in and out as he fell asleep, I thought about how hard I’d fought to do things on my own. I thought about how triumphant I’d felt when I could finally drive by myself. I thought about how happy I’d been when I could finally tape things and use scissors.
But wrapping a beautiful present, complete with glitter sticks and origami birds, didn’t seem like the goal anymore as I snuggled closer to my husband. After all, independence isn’t the plan. It never was. We weren’t sent to earth to see how much we could do all by ourselves but, rather, to see how well we shared the gifts we brought with us and how well we unwrapped the gifts we see in each other. And to see how much we could rely on God.
I must have dozed off with my husband, enveloped in the light of the Christmas tree, because we were both startled by a late-night phone call from “Officer Elf” informing us that the police had found our car.
Three big, tough men were driving it along Main Street when a canine unit pulled them over. The three men jumped out and ran like crazy to try to get away, but the dog caught one of the men and dragged him to the ground.
The police returned the car to us that night, complete with brass knuckles, but not any hand-drawn marshmallow treats. We like to think the thieves ate them.
We resumed cuddling on the couch and laughed once again as we considered the past few days. We laughed at the car, the newspaper headlines, the worry, the brass knuckles. We laughed and hugged and hugged some more. And as we hugged, it suddenly occurred to me that no matter what abilities I had or didn’t have, no matter how fancy my bows were or whether I could add glitter sticks to my presents, I was sealed to my husband for time and all eternity, and that was a gift no one could steal.
And I don’t need scissors, glitter sticks, or tape to wrap him tightly in—just my arms to hold him close this Christmas . . . and the eternity of Christmases to come.
By word and deed, Mary, the mother of Jesus, teaches devoted followers of her son about the significant virtues of a true disciple.
Although little of Mary’s life is actually recorded, what is recorded reveals a pattern of righteousness. That pattern is (1) faithful obedience to the word of God, (2) expressive joy for God’s blessings, (3) readiness to receive God’s witness and counsel from His servants, and (4) rearing a posterity who glorified God.
For Mary, the mother of the Son of God, there was no misconstruing of the sacred. She Knew who the baby was that lay against her breast. She knew of His promised destiny. Perhaps she knew that the deaf and blind awaited His cure and that many would look to Him for salvation. [By Susan Easton Black]
The Real story of Christmas begins with a young man and his weary wife who were desperately searching for somewhere to stay. When I look at the figure of Joseph in my Nativity set I find myself wondering what emotions filled his soul in those final moments that led up to the birth of Christ. The early events of that evening must have been heartbreaking for Joseph, the protector and guardian of his tiny family, as he watched the woman he loved entering into labour without any place to stay.
The scriptures tell us that on that night “there was no room for them in the inn” [Luke 2:7]. But the footnote for that scripture gives us an even better understanding of the circumstance. It reads, “There was no room for them in the inns.” It seems that the young couple did not just stop at one place to find shelter, but were turned away over and over again with the words that must have become discouragingly familiar, “no room”.
Our Christmas season sometimes resembles that first Christmas night. The season is packed so full that we may find ourselves echoing that same sentiment, “no room”. With parties and programs, shopping and decorating, it is hard to make room for anything extra. But after the last gift is given, the fancy dishes are cleared away and the house is finally settled down for an evening, how often do we find ourselves longing for something more?
It is in those quiet hours that I think of Joseph. On that first Christmas night there was no room, only the shelter of a small, simple stable. It was in that humble circumstance that the Saviour was born. I often wonder, as I think of Joseph caring for his weary wife, if he watched over the newborn child and longed for family, a warm meal, a soft bed for his wife and a handmade blanket for the baby.
Elder Holland describes what that night must have been like.
One impression which he persisted with me is that this is a story of intense poverty. I wonder if Luke did not have some special meaning when he wrote not “there was no room in the inn” but specifically that “there was no room for them in the inn”[Luke 2:7;emphasis added]. We cannot be certain what the historian intended but we do know these two were desperately poor.
I wonder what Joseph must have felt as he moved through the streets of a city not his own, with not a friend or kinsman in sight, nor anyone willing to extend a helping hand. In these very last and most painful hours of her “confinement”, Mary had ridden or walked approximately 160 Kilometres from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in Judea. Surely Joseph must have wept at her silent courage. Now, alone and unnoticed, they had to descend from human company to a stable, a grotto full of animals, there to bring forth the Son of God.
I wonder what emotions Joseph might have had as he cleared away the dung and debris. I wonder if he felt the sting of tears as he hurriedly tried to find the cleanest straw and hold the animals back. I wonder if he wondered: “Could there be a more unhealthy, a more disease-ridden, a more despicable circumstance in which a child could be born? Should the mother of the Son of God be asked to enter the “valley of the shadow of death”[Psalm 23:4] in such a foul and unfamiliar place as this? Is it wrong to wish her some comfort?”
Perhaps this provides and important distinction we should remember in our own holiday season. Maybe the purchasing and the making and the wrapping and the decorating should be separated, if only slightly, from the more quiet, personal moments when we consider the meaning of the baby (and his birth) who prompts the giving of such gifts. [We] need to remember the very plain scene, even the poverty, of a night devoid of tinsel or wrapping or goods of this world. Shepherds would soon arrive and later, wise men would follow from the east. But first and forever there was just a little family, without toys or trees or tinsel. With a tiny baby – that’s how Christmas began. By Emily Freeman
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[Song] Guard Him Joseph
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[Scripture] Matthew 1:24
Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him.
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[Challenge – Be Obedient] – Joseph was a carpenter. He was also the husband of Mary, and a descendant of King David. In the scriptures, Joseph is described as a ‘Just man’. This means he was honest and fair. Joseph was also kind. Joseph received a personal revelation from God before the birth of Jesus and then again when the lives of his family were in danger. Because He listened to this message, he kept his family safe. Jesus always showed love and respect for Joseph. At Christmas, Joseph is a symbol of righteous fatherhood. Today let us be obedient like Joseph was.
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[A Story relating to the challenge]
The Perfect Gift
by Melanie Jacobson
When I was a kid, we had a lot of Christmases where we didn’t get much in the way of presents. My parents both had stable jobs as teachers, but medical bills for my dad wreaked regular havoc on our budget, and Christmases were a luxury we often trimmed back. We didn’t mind. We always got something.
Around the time I was in middle school, our fortunes changed. My dad’s health had been okay for a while, the hospital bills had all been paid off, and more presents piled up beneath the tree at Christmastime. It wasn’t a hard thing to get used to, and we liked it: lots of shredded wrapping paper followed by haphazard stacks of all the things we’d asked for in front of us.
We had another lean year when I was in high school and my dad lost his job, but then it went back to normal again—traditions and Christmas food, family and friends, putting together the Christmas tree, and opening gifts on Christmas morning.
Christmas took on a different meaning when I left home for BYU. After spending a whole semester living off of Rice-a-Roni and pinching pennies, it was nice to come home and grab things out of the fridge whenever I wanted, and opening presents on Christmas morning felt like the purest indulgence. Stuff just to have stuff? I loved the sense of security that came with being a little spoiled by my parents for that one day.
And then came the Christmas where it all got upended by someone who had just the wrong combination of intelligence and laziness. It’s a complicated tale involving fraud, big business, and cold, cold calculation.
A few days before I was supposed to come home from BYU for Christmas break during my sophomore year, I got a call from my dad. This was always a big deal because my parents were deaf. To call me, he first had to call a relay operator, who would then call me. Next, my dad would type into a machine called a TTY, and the operator would read his message to me. I would respond, and the operator would type my message back to my dad. It wasn’t the easiest way to have a conversation, so generally when my dad called, he had something specific in mind. I wasn’t quite worried because every now and then he would make up a reason to call me just as a pretext so we could communicate in those pre-email days. But I was definitely on high alert.
Even without hearing his actual tone, frustration underlined all of his words the operator read to me. “Wanted to let you know that we’ve been robbed, and it’s going to take a while to get everything straightened out. Someone forged the check we wrote for car insurance and cashed it.”
The thing is, my parents paid their insurance for all three vehicles twice a year, so the check was for over $700. Someone had painstakingly altered the line where it said whom the check was written to and had instead filled in the name of a toy store. The note on the memo line read “Kids Christmas.”
Hindsight makes me grateful that in our family, presents were only a bonus at Christmastime and never the point. My parents would never have dreamed of stealing to make it happen. Christmas could still be Christmas in our home without gifts, and as it turned out, that year that was exactly how it would have to be.
As someone barely out of her teens, I was beyond frustrated, not by the lack of gifts but by the unfairness of the thievery.
“We won’t be able to do much as far as gifts go,” my dad told me.
It turned out that the perpetrator worked in the insurance company’s regional office. She’d been caught, and the bank was already aware that my parents had been fraud victims. The money was eventually returned, but it took weeks to get it all sorted out. In the meantime, my parents paid the insurance company again, another $700, to make sure the cars stayed insured. That was where the designated Christmas money—and then some!—had disappeared to.
What was more, my dad explained, tithing settlements were approaching. “We could use that money for Christmas and then catch up with our tithing in January when they resolve everything at the bank, but your mom and I want you to know that we never considered that option. We want to pay the Lord first. We can do delayed Christmas presents in January. We’ll make sure to ship you something at school.”
My dad was never one to give a lot of gifts, and the ones he gave were terrible, but they were so carefully considered that I could only love them. Many years later, when I moved back in with them for a time, I mentioned that my room, a converted garage, was often drafty. That year, for my thirtieth birthday, he bought me tubes of caulk. He was delighted with himself. In his opinion, it was the best gift he could give me: a lesson in caulking so I could fix problems like this in the future for myself. On another Christmas, he gave me plastic hooks for my bedroom wall. It seemed he thought the reason I always had clothes all over my floor was because I needed more places to hang things.
I promised him that I understood about the delayed Christmas and had no problem with it, but when I got home for the Christmas break a week or so later, I could tell the sparseness beneath the tree bothered him. My dad had been an educator his whole life, and his deafness limited the number of places he could teach. He’d taken a job in LA that kept him away from his family five days a week solely to provide for us, and it weighed on him that he wouldn’t be able to give us gifts. But he was sure that paying tithing and waiting on the Lord was the right thing to do, even with the bare space beneath our tree.
I don’t remember even one of us three kids being upset with my parents for this choice. My youngest sister was fifteen, and we’d witnessed my parents’ faithfulness and obedience for so many years that we wouldn’t have expected anything less. We were frustrated by the person who had felt stealing from my parents was the best way to take care of her own Christmas, but we kept our frustrations to ourselves and focused on our other traditions. We made my dad’s special queso dip that can only be served from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. We rented movies and popped popcorn on the stovetop, drenching it in enough butter to float it out to sea. And we waited for my dad to finish out the last week of school before Christmas break so he could come home and make it really feel like Christmas at last.
He finished on a Friday. I expected him to come home looking tired and ready to drag me to the sofa for a Star Trek marathon. Instead, he called all of us kids together and sat us down.
“On Sunday, your mom and I went in for our tithing settlement and handed the bishop the money that could have saved Christmas. We declared ourselves full tithe payers, and we had no regrets. Today as I was walking out to catch a ride back out of LA with my coworker, I felt a strong prompting to check my teacher mailbox. I’d already checked it a little earlier, and it had been empty, and I didn’t feel like holding up my carpool buddy by walking all the way back to the office. But the prompting came again, so I asked her to wait, and I went back to my mailbox. There was a new envelope in it, and when I opened it, there was a check for some back pay the district owed us from contract negotiations.”
He smiled then, leaning forward to tell us the best part of the story. “The amount of the check is almost the exact amount that was stolen from us. We didn’t pay our tithing because we thought the Lord would save Christmas. We did it to be obedient. But I know the timing of this check and the prompting to go back and check an empty mailbox that I wouldn’t see again for three weeks was the Lord’s way of rewarding that obedience. So Christmas presents are on again. Give me your lists!”
There were presents that year. But I don’t remember a single one. Instead, I remember the gift my dad gave us that sticks with me still: an example of faith and obedience.
I’ve experienced many Christmases since then and opened presents that will hold a special place in my home for the rest of my life, but my dad’s gift that year has become a permanent part of me, woven into the fabric of who I am. At times when I have struggled with my faith, this is one of those touchstone moments I come back to, a small miracle that can’t be explained by coincidence, only by the kindness of a loving Heavenly Father. And so my father did it again: he found me a gift that is exactly what I need.
Media links: [A Christmas message from Elder Richard J. Maynes]
[To Do Good Always] by President Gordon B. Hinckley
In each of us there is at Christmastime something of our childhood. We all revel in the fun of Christmas—of giving and receiving tinseled presents, of singing favourite carols, of feasting on goodies we never miss at other seasons, of gathering together as family and friends, all having a wonderful time.
But there is something else, something better, and that is to sit together as families and read again the fascinating story of the birth of Jesus, who was born in Bethlehem of Judea. It is a wondrous story told in language ever so simple and beautiful by the writers of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
All of us have heard these readings since we were very young. They are a part of our lives, a very important part. Every child, certainly every child who regards himself or herself as Christian, should know and enjoy the story of our Lord, the Son of God, who came to earth and died for each of us.
That story has been told by many writers who have taken it from the accounts in the New Testament. It has been told with beauty and understanding by those who have written with love and respect. One of these was Charles Dickens, the most popular English author of his times. He lived from 1812 to 1870. He wrote such timeless books as A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, and David Copperfield. He was the father of ten children, and evidently was one to delight them with stories that came of a vast imagination.
He was also one who loved the Lord and who wanted his children to love the Lord. In 1849, while he was writing David Copperfield, he took time to write in his own hand The Life of Our Lord. It was not written for publication, but only for his own dear children. He would not permit its publication. It was a personal thing, a simple testimony from him to them. His children, when they grew, would not permit its publication. It remained a closely held family affair for eighty-five years. Then his youngest son died in 1933. With the passing of that generation, the family concluded that the work might be published.
I was a missionary in London in 1934, sixty years ago, and I vividly recall the advertisements of one of the popular newspapers that Dickens’s The Life of Our Lord would be published serially. I paid little attention to it. Following serialization, it was published as a book. There was a surge of interest, and then it seemed to fade.
Years later Sister Hinckley found a copy of the book and read it to our children. While there are some doctrinal matters in it with which we would disagree, it is a wonderful story, told in language beautiful and easily understood. At this Christmas season, may I share a few lines with you? I give them just as Dickens wrote them, without editing.
“My dear children, I am very anxious that you should know something about the History of Jesus Christ. For everybody ought to know about Him. No one ever lived, who was so good, so kind, so gentle, and so sorry for all people who did wrong, or were in any way ill or miserable, as he was. And as he is now in Heaven, where we hope to go, and all to meet each other after we are dead, and there be happy always together, you never can think what a good place Heaven is, without knowing who he was and what he did.
“He was born, a long, long time ago—nearly Two Thousand years ago—at a place called Bethlehem. His father and mother lived in a city called Nazareth, but they were forced, by business to travel to Bethlehem. His father’s name was Joseph, and his mother’s name was Mary. And the town being very full of people, also brought there by business, there was no room for Joseph and Mary in the Inn or in any house; so they went into a Stable to lodge, and in this stable Jesus Christ was born. There was no cradle or anything of that kind there, so Mary laid her pretty little boy in what is called the Manger, which is the place the horses eat out of. And there he fell asleep.
“While he was asleep, some Shepherds who were watching Sheep in the Fields, saw an Angel from God, all light and beautiful, come moving over the grass towards Them. At first they were afraid and fell down and hid their faces. But it said ‘There is a child born to-day in the City of Bethlehem near here, who will grow up to be so good that God will love him as his own son; and he will teach men to love one another, and not to quarrel and hurt one another; and his name will be Jesus Christ; and people will put that name in their prayers, because they will know God loves it, and will know that they should love it too.’ And then the Angel told the Shepherds to go to that Stable, and look at that little child in the Manger. Which they did; and they kneeled down by it in its sleep and said ‘God bless this child!’
“Now the great place of all that country was Jerusalem—just as London is the great place in England—and at Jerusalem the King lived, whose name was King Herod. Some wise men came one day, from a country a long way off in the East, and said to the King ‘We have seen a Star in the Sky, which teaches us to know that a child is born in Bethlehem who will live to be a man whom all people will love.’ When King Herod heard this, he was jealous, for he was a wicked man. But he pretended not to be, and said to the wise men, ‘Whereabouts is this child?’ And the wise men said ‘We don’t know. But we think the Star will shew us; for the Star has been moving on before us, all the way here, and is now standing still in the sky.’ Then Herod asked them to see if the Star would shew them where the child lived, and ordered them, if they found the child, to come back to him. So they went out, and the Star went on, over their heads a little way before them, until it stopped over the house where the child was. This was very wonderful, but God ordered it to be so.
“When the Star stopped, the wise men went in, and saw the child with Mary his Mother. They loved him very much, and gave him some presents. Then they went away. But they did not go back to King Herod; for they thought he was jealous, though he had not said so. So they went away, by night, back into their own country” (The Life of Our Lord, London: Associated Newspapers, 1934; reprint, Philadelphia, Westminster Press, pp. 11-17).
And so this beautiful story opens. Dickens wrote of Joseph as the father of Jesus. Joseph was so recognized by the people. But we know that Jesus’ father was God, the Eternal Father, and that Jesus Christ was his Only Begotten Son in the flesh.
Dickens continues to give his children the story of the life of the Master, who he speaks of as “Our Saviour.” He tells of his teachings, of the miracles he performed, of his death at the hands of wicked and evil men. And then he concludes his little book with these words: “Remember!—It is Christianity TO DO GOOD always—even to those who do evil to us. It is Christianity to love our neighbour as ourself, and to do to all men as we would have them Do to us. It is Christianity to be gentle, merciful, and forgiving, and to keep those qualities quiet in our own hearts, and never make a boast of them, or of our prayers or of our love of God, but always to shew that we love Him by humbly trying to do right in everything. If we do this, and remember the life and lessons of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and try to act up to them, we may confidently hope that God will forgive us our sins and mistakes, and enable us to live and die in Peace” (ibid., pp. 124-27).
Bolton Ward Relief Society 