Gifts from Jesus

Today we had our "Gifts from Jesus" Christmas Bible study with the Ladies of ICCS.  A couple of years ago I was introduced to this when on home assignment in California, and found it very intriguing.  Friends sent the word document to me last year, and we had the gifts printed out, folded and put into a box.  

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This year, I decided I wanted to go a little more "gift-looking" in how we distributed them, so last night I took the gift cards (which I had reformatted to work better for my little scheme) and individually wrapped them.

The gift was wrapped in paper just a little bit larger than the card, so that it was framed on the written side.

I then rolled them up into small tubes, taped them and tied them up with ribbon.

When I got to the church this morning, I put the tubes into my pretty box, and placed it in front of the tree.

This is how the gifts looked when the box was opened. It made this so much more inviting than just pulling a paper out of the box--and increased the sense of receiving something of value. There are 30 unique gifts.

We started with a little food and coffee, and visiting around the tables. We had five members of a Campus Crusade team from Singapore join us--they are here to serve through Christmas. Here's a look at our three tables:

Once we had finished eating, we sang a few carols, I gave a short devotional from Philippians 2, and then I opened the box and let each person choose their gift.  We then went around the room sharing what gifts we had received.  It was interesting to hear each woman reflect on how they anticipated their gift to be used in their life. Some of them included: 

• A woman who will be relocating to her home country  in the next year talked about how it will take COURAGE to leave her work in Japan, find a job at home, and live with her parents again. 
• Another who works with children talked about how PATIENCE will help her in those endeavors. 
• A woman with her own business said that she needed FORGIVENESS to develop on her interactions with her students and her family when she begins to resent them. 
• The mother of two teenage girls realized how much they needed ENCOURAGEMENT from her at this stage in life.  
• The woman who received UNCONDITIONAL LOVE became fairly transparent as she shared that she needed this in her marriage right now. 
• One of the Singaporean team shared how she was filled with GRATITUDE for many things, including that her elderly mother recently made a profession of faith and was baptized while in the hospital.

Nine of us are from the Bible Study and five are from the Singaporean group.

As I was wrapping the gifts last night, I wondered which one I would get.  To be sure there were some that excited me more than others, but I decided that I would receive whatever came my way. (The first year I got this my gift was SERVICE--and that created a little struggle in my heart because "I'm a leader!"--Good sign I needed that gift!)  This year I was given the gift of the WONDERFUL COUNSELOR! Of course, Jesus IS the Wonderful Counselor, and he's given us his Spirit to guide us the way we should go.  I am certain that in this coming years there will be many times when I will be calling on this Wonderful Counselor.  And I pray that I can internalize attributes of that Wonderful Counselor so that in my interactions with others they can also be encouraged in their life of faith.