Another favorite Christmas story is told by Taylor Caldwell. She was in her 20s, recently divorced, had no job and was on her way job hunting on a spring, rainy day, with no umbrella. She sat down in the streetcar and there against the seat was a beautiful silk umbrella with a silver handle inlaid with an engraved name. The usual procedure would have been to turn the umbrella in to the conductor, but on an impulse, decided to find the owner herself. She found an address for the name in the phone book and took it to the owner. The lady was surprised to see it, it had been a birthday present and had been taken from her locker (she was a teacher) more than a year earlier. Her eyes teared up and she wanted to give Taylor a reward, but to accept money would have spoiled something. Taylor writes, "I think I gave her my address, but I don't remember."
Caldwell writes that the next 6 months were wretched. She could not find a permanent job. Her last job ended the day before Christmas, her 30 dollar rent was due and she had 15 dollars to her name. She purchased some very small gifts for her daughter, a small tree and a little food. Taylor writes, "there would be no Christmas for me. I had just about reached the lowest point in my life. Unless a miracle happened, I would be homeless in January, foodless, jobless. I had prayer steadily for weeks, and there had been no answer. God and men had forgotten me. I felt old as death, and as lonely."
She looked in her mailbox, only bills in it and two white envelopes. She went upstairs to see that her daughter, Peggy, had proudly set the kitchen table and set out the 3 cans of food that would be dinner. "I felt brokenhearted. We would have only hamburgers for our Christmas dinner tomorrow, and gelatin." She writes, "For the first time in my life, I doubted the existence of God and His mercy, and the coldness in my heart was colder than ice." Then, the doorbell rang, a delivery man was at the door. His arms were full of parcels. I could only stare at the boxes. A huge doll, gloves, candy, a beautiful leather purse. Incredible! It was the teacher, the address simply "California," where she had moved.
Our "canned" dinner that night was the most delicious I had ever eaten. I could only pray, "thank you, Father." I forgot I had no money for the rent and only fifteen dollars in my purse and no job. After Peggy went to bed, I opened the 2 white envelopes. One contained a check for thirty dollars from a company I had worked for briefly in the summer. It was, said a note, my "Christmas bonus." My rent! The other envelope was an offer of a permanent position with the government-to begin two days after Christmas. It was the most joyous moment of my life.
The church bells began to ring. I hurriedly looked at my child, who was sleeping blissfully, and ran down to the street. Someone began to sing, "Oh come, all ye faithful!" I joined in and sang with the strangers all about me. I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all.
And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent. God is with us, Emmanuel.
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