Illustration: Gifts

Ann Landers wrote about a person she knew who said the greatest gift he ever received in his life was a note his dad gave him on Christmas.

Illustration: Christmas, Sharing

The mall Santa had many children ask for electric trains. "If you get a train," he would tell each one, "you know your dad is going to want to play with it too. Is that OK?"

Illustration: Ministry, God’s Love

Jim Cymbala, Pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle, tells the following story: It was Easter Sunday and I was so tired at the end of the day that I just went to the edge of the platform, pulled down my tie and sat down and draped my feet over the edge. It was a wonderful service with many people coming forward. The counselors were talking with these people. As I was sitting there I looked up the middle aisle, and there in about the third row was a man who looked about 50, disheveled, filthy. He looked up at me rather sheepishly, as if saying, "Could I talk to you?"

Illustration: Santa, Communication

Little Bethany climbed up into Santa's lap in the mall. As soon as she was settled, Santa said, "And what would you like for Christmas this year?"

Illustration: Christmas, Incarnation

Back in 1891, Robert Louis Stevenson, author of such classics as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Kidnapped, gave a rather odd gift to the daughter of a friend of his. This friend, Henry Ide, once joked that Christmas was not the happiest day of the year in his household. His 14-year-old daughter, Annie, had been born on Christmas; she always complained she got cheated out of a separate birthday party.

Illustration: Thankfulness, Providence

In his Church & Culture blog, James Emery White shares this story: The barracks where Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsy were kept in the Nazi concentration camp Ravensbruck were terribly overcrowded and flea-infested.

Illustration: Excuses, Family

A cowboy walks into a bar in Texas, orders three mugs of Bud and sits in the back room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn. When he finishes them, he comes back to the bar and orders three more.

Illustration: Gifts, Shopping

A mother and a daughter are shopping in the mall when the mother eyes an expensive fur coat. "This year," she says, "I think I will buy my present instead of making you and Dad shop for me."

Illustration: Prayer, Sharing

A businessman needed millions of dollars to clinch an important deal, so he went to the church to pray for the money. By chance he knelt at the altar next to a man who was praying for $100 to pay an urgent debt.