We were walking down the bustling mall. Malls are always bustling. Especially around Christmas time. And this one was no exception. In the midst of this chaos, Kristi and I stopped suddenly. There before us stood a Christmas tree. It was small, a bit on the thin side, and held no decor save the long faces of some white and red tags. Lots of white and red tags.
Curious, I reached over to study one. “Boy, 12 years,” it read on the front underneath the endearing picture of a teddy bear holding a gift. The back of the pamphlet shared in detail the way you could take this paper, buy some presents, and bring them back to this tree. They would then be collected and sent to the child you bought them for. “Boy, 12 years.” The only Christmas presents he would get this year.
My eyes skimmed over the steady flow of human bodies parting around us, busily hurrying from point A to point B. Not a one so much as glanced at the little Christmas tree.
I turned my attention back to the tree, the little red and white tags. “Why are there so many papers still here?” I asked.
My sister and I stood there for all of five seconds. Neither one of us spoke. I do not know what was in her head, but I was appalled. Why wasn’t anyone stopping to even look at the tree? How could they justify spending forty dollars on their second new sweater and then not even care to spend half that on a child who wasn’t going to receive even one gift for Christmas? How could Americans be so utterly selfish?
Quietly, Kristi stated, “We should take one.”
The last word of my tirade fell off a cliff without so much as a gasp. What? Kristi was in her second year of college. She already owed my parents for one semester of school. In all the times we’d been shopping over the holidays, I’d never once seen her buy something for herself. I was not much better off. Having just moved from Oregon back to Nebraska and not yet having a job, my small supply of extra cash was quickly dwindling.
How much would it cost to buy decent presents for even one of these children?
But Kristi was still talking. “We should get a girl. What age do you think?”
So, it was decided. After some debate, we chose a card that said, “Girl, 10 years.”
Kristi smiled, then frowned. “Do you remember when you were 10? What do 10-year old girls like?”
With that question at the forefront of our minds, we went shopping. We found three different gifts, each costing separately more than either of us would have normally paid for a pair of jeans, but Kristi didn’t seem to be worried about the price. Before I could make a move to stop her, she had paid for them all.
I’ll never forget the lesson my sister and a little Christmas tree taught me that day. Jesus said, “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for Me.” He also told a story about an old woman who had nothing but two pennies in her pocket when she came into the house of God. Rich people were there too. Very, very rich people. They went to the collection boxes with whole bags of gold and silver coins, loudly clunking the whole way. She came with two pennies that could barely manage a decent “tink!” Yet she gave what she had.
A very wise woman I know often says, “God cannot use what you do not give.” There is a little girl, 10 years old, who will have presents for Christmas this year because a young lady chose to give her two cents. It may not have been much...but it was enough. It will always be enough if you will simply give it.
Two weeks later the ranch was contacted by a local lady who had a middle-age Arabian gelding. She had owned him for years and adored him to pieces, but was concerned that he was getting restless now that her son had moved away and he had no one to play with. Were we interested? Yes. As we approached the paddock, I saw curious chestnut ears swivel towards us. There was a broken diamond on his forehead like a precious stone that had been cut into . . . but not destroyed, not abandoned.
