With wind howling down from the Cascade Mountains, December 1969 was bitterly cold and snowy in Ellensburg, Washington. As a single mother, I and my children struggled just to stay warm and fed. I worked at minimum-wage jobs and attended nursing school, and often I went two or three days without eating at the end of the month to give the children more food. At times even the children went to bed hungry, and none of us had adequate winter clothing.

Wendell was in grade school, Brent was in preschool, and my three-year-old twins, Michael and Michelle, stayed with a state-paid baby-sitter while I was gone. Just about four months before, we started attending the local Church, and as a result my parents, brothers, and sisters wanted nothing to do with us. With the holidays approaching, we really had no one to turn to for help.

Ten days before Christmas, after a great deal of whispering among themselves, my children approached me one evening while I was studying. Nine-year-old Wendell tugged my sleeve and asked, “Mama, when are we going to get a Christmas tree and some presents?” Brent piped up and asked, “Or are we going to Grandma and Grandpa’s for Christmas this year?”

These were the questions I’d been dreading. I swallowed a lump in my throat and blinked away my tears and said, “I’m afraid we’re not going to have any Christmas presents this year.”

“Why not, Mama?” they asked. “Well, Grandma and Grandpa have asked us not to come this year, and we just don’t have any money for our own Christmas,” I answered.

“Oh Mama, nothing?” asked Wendell. “Santa won’t forget us though, will he?” I replied that Santa probably wouldn’t be able to stop at our house that year.

For the next few days the children seemed somber. They often stood by the front window and looked out at passers-by and neighboring festive houses. While their playmates bubbled with excitement about the presents and goodies being prepared in their homes, my children quietly accepted the fact that no packages or decorations or other signs of Christmas were appearing in our house.

Our church had a Christmas party planned for Saturday night, 4 days before Christmas, but we decided not to go because the church was a mile and a half away and walking was our only means of transportation. However, a car pulled up at our house on the evening of the party, and one of the deacons knocked on our door.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go to the Christmas party! Get your coats on, kids.”

The party was the first real Christmas flavor to come into my children’s lives that year. I don’t know what they talked with Santa about, but they appreciated his gifts of candy and oranges, and their spirits seemed much uplifted afterward. Encouraged by my children’s renewed enthusiasm, I used their watercolors to paint a Santa face on our front window. Now we had some decorations!

When Christmas Eve arrived, I had less than $2 in my purse. We walked to the grocery store, where I bought each child two tangerines and the cashier handed each of them a large candy cane. Along with the story of Jesus’ birth, that would be the extent of our Christmas.

As we rounded the corner on our way home, Wendell shouted, “Hey, Santa came!” The other children echoed his cries upon seeing a beautifully decorated Christmas tree on our porch. Mounting the porch steps, we saw two large boxes, previously hidden from view, placed next to the tree.

One box was full of food, and the other was full of presents. I could hardly believe my eyes. Wendell plugged in the Christmas tree lights as soon as we moved the tree inside, and the children pinched and shook each present as they set it under the tree. Their eyes were full of wonder.

Next we unpacked the food in the kitchen. The children had never seen so much in one place except at the grocery store! Even Wendell couldn’t remember having a whole turkey in the house.

“We won’t have to go to bed hungry tonight!” said Brent.

I fixed the children a special Christmas Eve supper. Afterward we sat around the Christmas tree and enjoyed the lights while I read the story of the birth of Jesus. “We have a lot to thank God for tonight,” I said.

When we opened the presents the next morning, each child received exactly what he or she had wanted. In addition, each child got a warm outfit, gloves, and mittens, and money for boots. Someone had even made clothes for the doll my daughter received. The food was enough to last us several weeks beyond Christmas.

I may never know who did what that year or how they knew what the children wanted. Everyone in our church denied involvement, but the smile on the pastor’s face said it all. I’ll always remember that Christmas as the best of my life, and my grown-up children feel the same way. We felt the Spirit of love, the Spirit of Jesus Himself that day more than we ever had before and realized the truth in this statement…God loves us.

I really love that story because it captures an element of the magic of Christmas! That it’s not ALL about the gifts and the Clause and the lights and the milk and cookies…(which are all awesome!) but Christmas is also about love, charity, God’s provision and a heart to give to others. To meet their needs and incite in them a feeling of wonder. What also attracted me to this story is that within it is also the essence of the unexpected.

There’s a rather unexpected scene in Luke Chapter 18. Jesus is teaching and healing and serving the multitude and people begin to bring to Him little children. At first, they are denied by the disciples but Jesus steps in…

Luke Chapter 18 Verses 15 – 17: Jesus not only made time in the midst of all of the needs for the children but in this short scene, He reveals something to them and to us…that He desires to give us a gift. To receive something…something must be given. And His statement here is that in order to receive this gift, the gift of entrance into the Kingdom of God, we are to come to Him in a most unexpected way…as a child.

What do you give someone who has everything? Hard question this time of year. One that we as ‘mericans deal with for sure in our buy now pay later society…but here’s the question, the unexpected question to consider this Christmas Eve…what do you give someone who has nothing? You see, that’s us. In our humanity, in our mortality…in the face of eternity, each one of us is born into this world with nothing (an undeniable fact) and we leave out of it with nothing (an undeniable fact). And so right now you might have money, a career, stocks, security, a nice whip…you might have it all figured out…but ultimately, without receiving the gift of God, in eternity we have nothing…

And so what do you give someone who has nothing…the answer….everything. That is what God has given…just like a child, God invites us to Himself just as we are…we have nothing, we come to God empty handed and empty hearted and He gives to us…everything. He did it 2000 years ago when He Himself was born to us…Emmanuel, God with us…God sent His all to this world on that first Christmas Day and His desire, His unexpected heart for each of His children, for you specifically, is to give even YOU a place in His Kingdom…