It was our first Christmas - and the choice we had to make was whether or not we wanted to split that $30 to buy gifts for each other - or to take that money to purchase our first Christmas tree and decorations for our first Christmas. After discussing this - we both came to the conclusion that the gift we would give ourselves was to spend the money for a tree and decorations.
We went to a local plant nursery, hunted through the trees until we found one in our budget. Fortunately, Gibson's Discount Department Store in Bossier City was going out of business that year, so we loaded up on 25 cent strings of lights and other heavily discounted decorations. Tammy made some homemade decorations to finish out our first Christmas tree.
We were in heaven. Broke as "Cooter Brown" (whomever that is - its just one of the things my mom always said) - but we were together - and we had our own Christmas tree. This memory probably partially explains why 28 years later decorating for Christmas is still a big deal to Tammy and me.
Along with our decision that our gift to each other was using our limited extra funds for our first Christmas tree - Tammy and I determined that our decision was privately our own. No one else needed to know. Even though there was not a single gift for us under our tree -- we had gifts bought for the extended family - we had our own tree, we had each other. This was all we wanted for Christmas.
So we did just that: we didn't tell anyone what we had done or that we were pretty much broke for the rest of the month. No one else needed to know.
But about 9:00 a.m. on the Saturday before Christmas there was a knock on the back door. I opened the door and was totally surprised to see my little mother all bedecked in her Christmas finery standing there with gifts in hand.
I have to explain that my mother NEVER just showed up at our home without notice. We lived a good 10-15 miles from her. Even when in later years we lived less than a mile from their home, I can never remember my mother ever coming to our home without notice again. It is just not something my mother EVER does.
So that Saturday morning we were so shocked that she was there - that it took us a bit to figure out what she was doing. She handed me her armload of gifts and then told me there were more in the car. When I asked what these gifts were for, Mom just smiled and said "These are from Santa Claus". And as quickly as she appeared, she was back in her car and gone.
When Tammy and I looked at the tags on the gifts there were an equal amount of gifts for each of us - and yes, every tag said "From Santa Claus"
This memory is about so much more than just our first Christmas tree or the surprise gifts from "Santa".
This story is about how without Tammy and I ever telling anyone - including my mother - somehow my little mom in the Spirit "picked up on" that Tammy and I did not have the money to buy gifts for each other.
If this were just a once in a lifetime event with my mom - then it would still be a favorite memory of Christmas past. But it isn't. Hard to explain perhaps, but it is something my mother has always done - and continues to do. Mom will be 84 this coming Friday. And even this week speaking with her on the phone she told me how she "just felt" that she needed to be concerned about a specific situation - in someone else's life.
Here she is at almost 84; she hardly leaves her home except for "necessary" trips to the doctor which may include brief stops at Walmart or Fred's. She doesn't really talk on the phone to anyone except immediately family. About the only regular contact she has with anyone other than family is Dale Blair who helps with the lawn and the Avon lady.
And yet, without gossip or anyone bending her ear - at 84 Mom still "picks up" on things. It is not uncommon that when I ask if she has heard from my siblings and how they are doing, for her to say: "They say they're doing fine. But I just feel like..."
I apologize for the long post, but there was no other way to explain my intentional gratitude without sharing these details.
You see, I am grateful that my dear little mother with all her quirks and precious peculiarities is mightily used of the Spirit. I am convinced that she walks with the Father, and that she operates in the gifts of the Spirit as much as any of those who do so in much more public venues. And by her example, I am also convinced that Mom demonstrates what the Gifts of the Spirit are all about.
That its not about tent revivals and miracle crusades. Its not about speaking prophetic words over TBN.
But being used by the Spirit and allowing the gifts of the Spirit to operate in our lives is simply allowing the Father to lead us to minister to needs and speak words of strength and direction into situations which otherwise we would be completely unaware of.
And nowhere else should this be occur more frequently - and be of any greater importance than in our families, in our homes, in our closest relationships.
Father, thank You for a Spiritual mother. Thank you for exhibiting through her what Your gifts are all about. Thank you for the strength I continue to receive through Mom still being used in "the gifts".
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