The Gift of Showing Up
Every December, old memories pull back into the room with me.
Not just the big ones, but the ones that slipped in unnoticed.
Moments I didn’t understand were gifts until years later.
A conversation in a church hallway.
A late-night phone call.
A word spoken gently when I was too stubborn to hear anything else.
And one memory always rises to the surface this time of year.
There was an elderly man in my church when I was a kid.
He’d shuffle to the front row every Sunday, sit in the same spot, and smile like he already knew the ending of every struggle I was facing.
I remember the morning I played the piano for the first time in front of the church.
My hands were shaking.
I wasn’t sure I belonged up there.
I just tried to make it through the song without falling apart.
After the service, he met me at the bottom of those steps.
He put his hand on my shoulder and told me I had a gift.
He told me God was going to use it.
He told me he was proud of me.
What I didn’t learn until years later was this:
He didn’t know a thing about music.
Couldn’t read a note.
Didn’t understand chords or timing or technique.
But he believed in me.
And at that age, that meant everything.
People gave me pieces of themselves long before I knew how much I would depend on them.
Not money.
Not wrapped presents.
Just presence.
Just love that stayed.
And the older I get, the more I realize something:
Christmas isn’t only about the Gift God gave the world.
It’s also about the people He used to keep me upright when life should have knocked me over.
Some walked with me for years.
Some crossed my path for only a moment.
But each one left something in me I’m still living on.
And now I feel a pull to hand that same kind of love to someone else.
Not in a dramatic way.
Not in a “change the world” way.
But in the same steady, deliberate way others once did for me.
Show up.
Pay attention.
Stay patient when someone’s life is still sorting itself out.
Offer kindness without needing applause.
Because most of the gifts that rescued me were simple.
Most of the encouragement that kept me going cost someone something.
Most of the love that healed me arrived without fanfare.
This Christmas, I want to pass those gifts forward.
Not because I’m trying to repay a debt,
but because love is meant to keep moving.
The same love God sent to us in Bethlehem.
The same love someone handed to me when I needed it most.
And maybe, years from now, someone will look back and remember me the way I remember the man in the front row.
A gift they didn’t see coming.
But at precisely the moment they needed it.
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