OUT TO PASTOR: A surprised pre-Christmas gift special

Like everyone, I enjoy the Christmas holiday from beginning to end. It’s my favorite time of the year. 

I enjoy everything about Christmas – except I’m not so fond of Christmas shopping. Compared to The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage, who is the Queen of cash registers, I am not qualified to do shopping.

Perhaps I got it from my very frugal father. He could squeeze a nickel so hard that the Buffalo would scream. I take after him a little bit. I don’t want to buy anything that I don’t need.

And, buying gifts for people is a challenge for me. I don’t even know what gift I like. If I want something, and if I can afford it, I buy it. However, I don’t know how to get gifts for family members.

But mostly, I don’t know how to get a present for The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage – she has everything she needs.

And for me to find out one thing that she needs for Christmas would be a miracle in and of itself.

Something happened this week that encouraged me in this line. 

The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage was using a paper cutter for her Christmas card work in my office. All of a sudden, I heard her groan in agony.

She walked out carrying one of the paper cutting boards. I asked what was going on, and she told me that it broke while cutting some paper.

“I’m just going to throw it away and use another board.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, “maybe I can fix it for you?”

It took her a while to calm down from hilariously laughing at me. Then she said, “What, you fix something?” and continued laughing.

I thought that this was a good time to catch her in something. She graciously handed me the cutting board and showed me where it was broken. But it wasn’t actually broken. One of the levers popped out of its socket, and it was almost impossible to put it back in.

That’s why the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage gave up and was ready to throw it away. She just didn’t have time to work on it.

She handed it to me, walked away snickering, and I began studying the little board, trying to figure out what I could do.

I have a stellar reputation for being unable to fix anything. Sure, I can fix some of my writing projects, but outside of that, I am no Mr. Fix-It Man.

What would happen if I could fix this little cutting board and hand it back to her? It would be an excellent opportunity to challenge that image of me.

Looking at the cutting board, I didn’t know where to start. You have to know where to start in order to fix something, and I needed to figure out how to begin this project.

I looked at the board from front to back, and tried to understand how it worked.

I noticed one of the levers had popped out of the socket, so I needed to figure out how to pop it back in.

I couldn’t see anything broken on the board, so I didn’t understand how it came out. According to The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage, she let it fall; when it fell, one lever popped out.

After fiddling with it for several minutes, I suddenly saw how it could be fixed. I was surprised at myself. But with a little twisting and turning, I popped that lever back in where it belonged. When I did that, the board was back to normal.

I was so happy I didn’t know what to do, and I certainly didn’t want to sing. But I called The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and said, “Oh, my dear. Would you please come in here for a moment?”

She showed up quickly, and I handed the cutting board back to her and said, “I fixed it for you so now you can continue using it.”

She looked at me, then at the board I had just handed her, and in a low tone, she said, “How in the world did you fix that?”

Getting an early Christmas present is a very wonderful thing. I could not have gotten a better one than this.

As I was musing over this great gift, I couldn’t help but think of the greatest gift in the world.

The verse that came to mind was John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Christmas is the celebration of God’s greatest gift coming into the world. During this illustrious celebration, I do not want to forgot what God’s gift has done for me. The gift from God is “everlasting life” that comes to those who believe in Him.

Dr. James L. Snyder lives in Ocala, FL with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. Telephone 1-352-216-3025, e-mail jamessnyder51@gmail.com, website www.jamessnyderministries.com