Thursday, March 22, 2018

March 22, 2018

Aww, Nuts!

Read: Philippians 4:17-19

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were beautifully snowy this past year. The only drawback to that is that at some point I had to grab the shovel and clear the driveway (one can only drive through deep snow so many times, after all), and so Boxing Day found me bundled up with a snow shovel in my gloved hands, moving Nature’s Bounty from the concrete to the grass.

Most of you know that the See and van Becelaere families both went through some major changes in the time leading up to Christmas. We saw Leonard and Shirley go home to be with the Lord, leaving the rest of us to deal with new empty places in our families. So with all that, Heidi and I had assumed we would not be receiving our much-looked-forward-to visit by a couple of Sees bringing nuts and a note.

As I said, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were beautifully snowy, so there I was on Boxing Day, shoveling away, when I noticed that the front storm door wasn’t quite closed. We hadn’t even looked at the front door as we hustled to and from the garage whenever we were going anywhere those past couple days, so I shoveled my way up the steps, did the porch, and pulled on the door to see what was keeping it open. Lo and behold, there was a package of nuts with a card and a note from Bertie See.

It’s pretty amazing how important something seemingly trivial can be. In the midst of our somewhat muted celebrations, it was wonderful to find that Bertie took the time to carry out her Christmas tradition – one that we found very important, but had assumed wouldn’t happen. Sometimes the big things really are what matter, but usually it’s those little things – those simple things that show us someone really cares – that are most important.

Prayer: Lord, help us to be aware of those little things we can do that will brighten others’ lives, and keep our hearts open to doing them. Amen.

Charlie van Becelaere

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