In jail for years, when finally freed he visited with his child.
“Son, where did you get that iPod?”
“Dad, you gave it to me last Christmas.”
The Salvation Army’s Angel Tree Ministry allows children to receive gifts from their incarcerated parents. Just imagine, “Mom, who is this from?” “It’s from your dad.”
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him! . . . Matt 7:1
Yesterday I selected gifts for a 12-year old girl, size medium, junior. She wanted a bible, books and a winter coat. It was not an exercise of buying stuff, it was the privilege of representing the love of her father to this currently fatherless child. These gifts were precious, infused with the possibility of hope, of being remembered, of love.
A woman at LifeWay invested her own struggles as a 12-year old to help me select just the right bible, books and journals that would affirm the heart of this girl. We inscribed her bible with her name and the words Beautiful & Beloved just below.
Then it was time to select a coat. It must wrap her in the arms of her father, it must bless her with comfort and warmth, and it must sparkle that she is beautiful.
It was more emotional than I would have ever expected. I drove across Akron so this little girl would receive these gifts from her father. Work stuff? It had to wait.
Choosing each item, I asked whether each was good enough to represent her father’s love, much like God’s better gifts. My hope – as she opens each gift she feels the love of her father, as she reads her bible that she will grow closer to the King, as she wears that coat she will thank and think of her father, and as she reads those books or writes in those journals she will capture thoughts and words that will direct her life towards wholeness and love.
As a man and as a father, what an honor to be able to fight FOR this family. That it will be restored upon his or her release, and that you can rise up and offer your strength, beauty, or compassion on behalf of someone this Christmas season.
Merry Christmas!