Miracle on Unmarked Street

It's my third Christmas overseas, away from family, and I think it's been the hardest yet. You'd think it would get easier, but maybe not. My mother mailed my Christmas package in plenty of time, I thought, about three weeks ago. At least that would be something tangible from family and home.

It hadn't come by the morning of Christmas Eve. (The post office is open morning and evening here, and closed in the middle of the day.) I prayed that it would come in time, but time was running out. I resigned myself to a Christmas without gifts, but I kept hoping.

I went to the post office this evening, and the guy told me that the packages come around 6:00 in the evening, and today's had already come. I was pretty bummed because I'm going to a party on Christmas that's too far from the post office to make it back to check there after package time and before closing, and I'm leaving town before evening on Wednesday. So I figured I wouldn't get my gifts from my family before I return early January. On a whim, I left my cell phone number with the guy, so that at least I could know that the gifts were there if the box arrived on Christmas day.

I went home and cried because I missed my family, and a Christmas with no gifts (for someone whose love language is gift giving) seemed like the final straw. Of course I knew I was being a baby, and of course I knew that Jesus coming was the best gift ever. And I knew that Christmas would be okay sans gifts, so I'd just suck it up and deal with it.

I'd been home about 10 minutes when my phone rang. "Congratulations!" the voice said. A package had just arrived. The post office box is shared by a dozen people, so I didn't dare count on the package being for me until I saw my mom's familiar handwriting on the label.

I still don't know how the box arrived after the other packages. I'm pretty sure it was God, because I don't think Santa is too welcome here. Well, I know it was God, because what he said through it was that he's not a "suck it up and deal with it" Father. He's patient and kind and likes to give fun surprises to his children, even if they are big babies and aren't all godly about the real point of Christmas, which is not Christmas presents.

So Merry Christmas, all, and may our Father show his lovingkindness to you in special ways this day!

P.S. I wouldn't have been completely without gifts from home, thanks to sweet siblings who deposit money in my bank account or send electronic gifts.