Don’t be afraid to give!

This morning, I woke up thinking how people often say, “I don’t know what to give them for Christmas. They have everything.” Then another thought came to mind: “I don’t know what to give them for Christmas. They have little or nothing.”
The poor have our prayers, but it occurs to me that the well-to-do might need them more! Sometimes wealth insulates people from being kind or generous for fear they might be taken advantage of, which is understandable but so sad for the cynicism and poverty of spirit it brings.
Conversely, I recall an actual incident that happened when I was a child, who was unexpectedly given a glimpse of genuine generosity. This might not seem like a Christmas poem, and yet it expresses the spirit of Christ at Christmas and throughout the year.

Down Kinney Town
Feet bare, the girls came up today,and Mama gave them ouch-grown shoesthat once belonged to me or Kay,but, oh, I longed to give them too.
Two girls they were: soiled blonde, unkempt –not like Mama's girls who shonein new sewn clothes and often dreamtof finer galaxies than home.
With clean hands bare, could I, a child,share much with girls from a small shack, wild?But one said, "Come," so I went down –down the tangled path to Kinney Town.
Theirs was adventure I could play.A cold potato rationed me –eyeless, grown in soil, unbent. Theygave that last leftover. Free.
I took.Then home I went with backward look.
by Mary Harwell Sayler

May God bless your holy days and give you the prayers to pray for the poor and prayers for those who seem to have everything, but don’t.
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