Christmas thought

Christmas thought:
 I've been really enjoying giving presents for Christmas this year
because theres a rapture that comes from giving to people who truly
NEED things! Most of my friends here get excited about things like:
one of my old skirts, a plate that I don't need, forks and knives
(that they have to learn how to use because they usually eat with
their hands), a bottle of toothpaste, packets of chicken stock, their
first pair of tennis shoes....things that to us we can find duplicates
and duplicates of lying around in our houses or kitchens.
It makes you shake your head and want to ask "Why?", doesn't it? God,
why do some have so much and some have so little? Yet, I think for us
it's easy for that thought to bring shame, which is equally not a
burden for us to carry. Yet, it's SO important for us, friends, to
REMEMBER that people like my friend Emilta, who I just gave a water
bucket to this morning because she has no running water and nothing to
carry water in from the wells for her and her 5 kids, EXIST. And
remember that there are ways to give to people like her instead of
give your neice a 30 dollar BRATZ doll like Oxfam who can provide
goats or ways or school books etc. to people who have nothing or
Project Ak-47 who provides for kids who have been rescued from being
Child soldiers. Or even IRIS Ministries who is about to give christmas
presents to hundreds of children all over the world including Pemba
and feeds thousands of hungray children every day!
But  there's even more to this issue...I think my real point is this,
friends: Don't get taken away by the stuff - remember that we can
exist without the "STUFF" of this world. While I'm so happy to bless
my friends here with stuff, I'm even more happy to see that THEY HAVE
BEEN LIVING WITHOUT STUFF that we often feel we can't I live without
and are even...HAPPY! And for me Christmas always fills me with joy
over remembering that it's possible to have what Jesus died for:
ABUNDANT LIFE, with or without the "stuff". IT IS POSSIBLE to have
joy, contentment, and ABUNDANT LIFE through HIM who gave it all for
us.
And that's enough for me. I pray you find it too if you haven't.