This Will Be A Special Christmas For Me

The Madison Church of Christ, where we worship, is the "Toys For Tots" distribution point for the Madison Zip Code. This year in addition to giving away the toys from the church and the Marines, we had a group of volunteers that met and visited with each of the families before they did their shopping. I was a part of that group. We worked with over 250 families that were shopping for nearly 500 children. It was an eye opening experience for me. It is one thing to know that there are a lot of hurting people in our world, it is quite another to look them in the face and hear their stories one at a time. The first lady I visited with was a grand mother, now raising her five grand children. The parents just up and left one day and this grand mother doesn’t have a clue where they are. I can’t imagine a couple walking away from one child, much less five. The second lady was also a grand mother, now raising her four year old grand daughter. Her daughter had the child out of wed lock and a few months ago this mother called her daughter and the four year old answered the phone. "Where is your mother?", the grand mother asked. The little girl said, "She is on the floor and I can’t wake her up." When the grand mother arrived shortly their after at her daughter apartment she found her passed out on the floor from taking drugs. These two ladies had already raised their children, and now they have had to start all over again with their grand children. There was also a single dad that just rescued his two children from an abusive mother, a young mother who’s husband is on house arrest, a couple from New Orleans trying to start their life over again in Tennessee after Katrina destroyed everything they owned. And their was Ebony. Ebony lives with her boy friend and she is raising a ten year old daughter. The night before coming to the toy give away she had watched "The Passion of Christ." She had been blown away by what she saw. That movie really shook her up and caused her to look at herself. After she received her toys she needed a ride to work at Taco Bell. As we drove she told me how she and her boy friend talked after the movie. They have decided that living together without being married is sin and they are not going to live in sin anymore. She had many questions. She wants Bible answers. She wants to be able to answer the questions her daughter has been asking and know that it is not someone’s opinion, but what God has said about the matter. I told her I would help, and we are to get together soon. These are only a few of the stories. Everyone of those families has their own story. I am sure that there were a few families there to just take advantage of the situation, there always are a few. But for the most part, here were families in genuine need. This Christmas will be special for me. As I watch my grand children open their gifts I am sure in the back of my mind there will also be pictures of those grand mothers, that single father, the couple from New Orleans, and yes, Ebony as they open the gifts they will have under their tree. Yep, this is gong to be a special Christmas.