I had a scene from a movie that actually played out in my own life recently.

In the movie Christmas in Connecticut, Elizabeth Lane writes a column about a long lost rocking chair from her childhood. In response, her readers send in rocking chairs in droves. Never mind the fact that she wrote about life on a farm with a husband and child while she actually lived in an apartment as a single woman.

I wrote a blog post about wanting a folding rocking chair a while back. Recently, one of my most devoted followers was kind enough to send me one. I just got it in the mail today. This may be one of my top five all-time favorite gifts, not so much because of the gift itself, but because of the generosity and sacrifice of the giver.

Christmas is about the ultimate gift of generosity and sacrifice. God send His one and only son Jesus into the world for many who would scorn and reject the gift but also for those who would open their hands and hearts to receive this gift.

My prayer for you at this season is that you are truly overwhelmed by the magnitude of God’s gift. No one forced Him to give it. It wasn’t done out of obligation or duty but 100% out of sacrificial love.

Maybe this Christmas we can all move a little closer to showing our gratitude for that gift though our own sacrificial giving and love. None of us can begin to hope to repay the gift or prove our worthiness, but we can pay it forward and point others to that Ultimate Sacrificial Gift.

“When the Maker of time, the Word of the Father, was made Flesh, He gave us His birthday in time, and He, without Whose divine bidding no day runs its course, in His incarnation reserved one day for Himself. He Himself with the Father precedes all spans of time, but on this day, issuing from His mother, He stepped into the tide of years. Man’s Maker was made Man that He, the Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast, that the Bread might be hungry, that the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired from the journey, that Truth be accused by false witnesses, that the Judge of the living and dead be judged by a mortal judge, that the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Vine crowned with thorns, the Foundation be suspended on wood, that Strength might be made weak, that the Healer be wounded, that Life might die” (St. Augustine).