Undeserving

A Christmas Story
By Mary Kelso
December 2010

Each toy was neatly packed into place. They were well used but not broken, and though the paint was rubbed off here and there, they still had a brightness to them that spoke unmistakably of care. Connie carried them to the kitchen in preparation for her guests who were coming to “shop,” as they had jokingly called it, for their kid’s Christmas presents.

This young couple had been on her heart for months and the lack of progress in their situation was only escalating as Christmas approached. He had lost his job at a convenience store. The hours were horrible anyway, but the company had decided the late hours weren’t worth being open. He had made just enough to pay their rent while he worked, they needed her small income from the fabric store to cover everything else. Sometimes it had, sometimes it hadn’t. Now they were living solely on that uncertainty and it was taking it’s toll on them. He was making an effort, looking for work and receiving career counseling while he did whatever he could to make a few dollars. She was pushing for more hours, cutting costs and looking for cheaper living arrangements. Their small daughters, 1 and 5, were oblivious to the needs so urgent and glaring to them.

Connie knew they were hurting and she knew she couldn’t give them a roof to sleep under, or walls to enclose them, but surely she thought, “I can do something.” She pulled out those toys that weren’t broken, the ones which she had taken great pains to keep all the parts and pieces together. The ones that still had good batteries and the ones that her own girls still enjoyed were the ones she knew would be appreciated.

When the young couple arrived she insisted on the girls being out of the room. They had been very willing to her suggestions of “sharing what we have,” but it would be easier to part with their little treasures if they didn’t see them go. She laid them out on the table and explained what they did, what had happened to them and how she wouldn’t be offended if something wasn’t fitting for their children. They took all of it. She ushered them to the family room where a small but pristine kitchen set was waiting for them. It was the first thing they put in the car. The three of them went back to the kitchen to bag up the other items and as she carefully put each piece into a box for them she listened, and her heart began to sink.

“All the toys they have now are lost or broken.”

“They always tear up the pieces to their stuff and now they don’t have anything to play with.”

“I have asked Maria over and over, how she can lose every piece of clothing for her dolls, but they just seem to vanish.”

She said it without apology. “Maria put her last electronic game in the bathtub with her, so it’s really nice to have a replacement.”

She went on and on. Recounting careless memory after careless memory. Sealing, in Connie’s mind, the fate of the toys she was packing up for her. She knew they didn’t have the same standards for discipline that she and Brian did, but hearing those comments was a bit of a blow. She continued packing up the toys. Carefully placing the wooden puzzles with every piece still accounted for into a bag. She thought back to the afternoons spent painstakingly searching for that one missing piece, under the couch or in the wrong toy box. She knew she was a bit over-zealous and picky about it, but wasn’t it worth it? She had been able to preserve these toys. The dolls still looked new, because she had taught Audrey and Molly to carry them like real babies and when they wanted to dress and undress their babies, she had encouraged them to keep every piece picked up and put away. “Why?” she thought as she smoothed the dolls hair one last time and placed it into it’s coordinating toy diaper bag.

She was a little embarrassed at her own reaction to the idea that these toys were going to be destroyed by these other children, but she couldn’t help it. She had invested in their care and now she was watching herself hand them over to a toy’s worst nightmare. Had all that fussing been a waste of time?

She couldn’t justify giving any child a broken toy. She wouldn’t ever donate broken or unusable items to charity or friends or anyone. It wasn’t right in her mind. No one deserves to be given broken hand-me-downs. Especially children. We should give our best. These weren’t just toys her girls had grown out of, they were toys they were sharing. Was it fair to encourage her own girls to go without, when she knew that these other children were not being taught to appreciate the gift. No. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right!

She was watching the young couple walk away with their goodies. They were thankful, they gushed their appreciation and seemed genuinely blessed by the offer. Connie wanted to renegotiate, she wanted to demand that these parents be careful with these things. In her mind she pleaded “We didn’t just pick them up off of a store shelf for you, we picked them out for ourselves, cared for them for months, some for years and now we’re sacrificing them to you. Please understand how much we’re giving you?” But she didn’t say any of it. She smiled and hugged them. She walked with them to the door and made up her mind to give without expectation and to love without reproach. She wanted this little family to have a good Christmas, it shouldn’t matter how much it cost.

As the young couple left the house, Connie turned from the door to see her 6 year old, Molly, standing at the top of the stairs with a peaceful look on her face. She didn’t seem bothered by what had transpired, even though she knew that one of her favorite dolls, Penelope, had just walked out the door in a cardboard box. She had picked it out herself as something worthy of donation. Connie smiled at her and said, “well, they’re gone.”

Molly smiled and seemed to be holding back a tear or two. She walked down the stairs and hugged Connie around the middle. She looked up at her mother and said, “Mom, I think Maria is going to be very happy this Christmas.”

“I think so too,” Connie responded without much emotion.

“Doesn’t that make you happy?” asked Molly.

“Sure. I’m glad. I think everyone deserves to have a happy Christmas.”

“I sorta feel like God.” She said it with a sheepish look, like she was ashamed of herself, but she couldn’t suppress her joy in the idea either.

“Like God?” Connie was confused.

“Ya know…He gave His baby to people who couldn’t take care of Him like He could. I’ve been to Maria’s house and my dolls aren’t going to have their own bed like they do here. Maria doesn’t play the same with her toys, but maybe she’ll do better now. I don’t think she’s ever had a doll that had all it’s parts before. I gave her Penelope, she’s almost perfect. That’s what makes me feel like God.”

Molly ran off and Connie was left standing in the foyer a bit stunned and ashamed of herself. She let her tears fall and found herself repenting right where she stood.

Of course God understood her. He was a parent too. He knew far more than she did about investment and sacrifice. How humbling to imagine His great love for her…if she felt the pain of sacrifice over a toy, how heavy must His heart have been to offer a broken, fallen and undeserving world his perfect Son? He knew what we would do to Him. He knew the fate of His beloved Son, that he would be challenged at every turn, and that ultimately a cross and a tomb awaited Him, yet he had done it. He did it with fanfare. He sent angels to announce it, He hung a star in the sky to prepare for His arrival and selected a young woman of great character to bear His only son and present him to mankind. He invested a lot into His Son, and gave Him up willingly in hopes of mankind doing better.

“I for one…” she confessed to God, “will do better now. You gave me Jesus. He is perfect.”

Christmas had always been a special time for Connie but as the day itself approached, a new appreciation woke in her mind. A deeper understanding of grace, love and mercy. It wasn’t a greater acknowledgment of His sacrifice as much as a more accurate view of her own standing with Him. Nothing she was good at, nothing she had, nothing she gave or received was because of any good in her. Even her idealism, her desire to take care of what she had was because she had been taught the Word of God as a child. Giving, stewardship and sacrifice were ingrained in her thinking from her childhood, like brushing her teeth and taking a bath. Her best traits were not things she had determined to do, they were fed to her and grown in her by a loving God and those who served him so faithfully before her. She was only deserving because she had been transformed by God’s sacrifice of His perfection for her sake. He laid down His own deity for her and His only expectation was her acceptance and her willingness to share it with others. She realized for the first time in her life that it wasn’t any level of need or lack of character that made a person undeserving, the only thing that made a person undeserving, was their insistence on making the distinction.

“By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?
My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”
I John 3:16-18 NKJV