CUPS OF WATER

It's THAT time of year again when all reason seems to fly away on tinsel and glitter and materialism reigns.  I love the family side of Christmas, the time together is full of surprises, food, and laughter, but it's sad to see the long check-out lines and over-laden trolleys, and the stressed faces of those who are trying to make their few dollars go a very long way.

Yesterday I spent the morning with some people who are struggling to get their heads above water and to deal with the hand life has currently dealt them.  We talked about what it meant to really live.  It isn't about what we do or don't have materially and externally (although those things help keep us comfortable) but more about what is happening on the inside of us.

It is so important that each of us is able to live life, to live out of something internal and untouchable that sustains us through whatever we encounter day to day.  It is a choice - to live minute by minute and hour by hour to the full, not waiting for all the other things to fall in to place but making a decision that we will grasp and live the life we have this very moment.

The next stop was with a solo mum and her six week old baby - taking the remains of our banana cake and having a cuppa and a catch up with her.  While she fed the baby we re-arranged her living room and folded washing for her - all those things new mums don't have time for.  There were lots of laughs and a tidy home at the end of it all.  Nice to wave goodbye to a smiling mum and a contented baby.

Those things don't sound much, they weren't difficult to do, but faces lit up and hope and joy increased in those lives as a result.  The very hope and life that came to earth in a humble place as a free gift to each of us was passed on once more.  It didn't cost anything except time, and came out of the abundance of what has been given to each of us.  Is this not what it means to live?

My hope this Christmas is that many will choose to live in the fullness of all we have been given and then let it overflow into the lives around us.  We have been given a priceless gift that cannot be taken from us, and it needs to be passed on and ignited in the lives of others.  We have the gift of Life Himself, we celebrate that He was born, and we honour that gift by sharing it with the very people He visited when He walked on this earth.  It is a cup of water for the thirsty - how many free cups of water can we give away this Christmas I wonder?