This is a short chapter from my book.

A Short, Sweet Christmas Story

    God answers prayers: even when the "wrong" person receives them. Not that there is such a thing as the "wrong" person when it comes to prayer. We need all the prayers we can get.

   Christmas is a joyful time for me and my wife. And what is joy, if not to be shared? Every year, I design and print a Christmas card, and because our list is so long, sometimes we end up sending out a card to someone who has moved during the year. That doesn't
make our message any less heart-felt. That's exactly what happened at Christmas-time, 2,006.


   This afternoon, just when I was ready to fall flat on my face from exhaustion, the phone rang. The last three days had been real grinders, starting with Sunday morning when our water heater sprung a leak while my wife and I were getting ready to go to church. We had "church" mopping up water in the basement for half of the morning, trying to keep ahead of the water until the service man arrived. Monday, we spent half the day waiting for a new water heater to be delivered and when the man came to install it, he said that it was too difficult too work in such a cramped space and refused to do it. Today, we had another plumber come, and while he was able to install the new water heater, it took all morning and cost twice as much as we had first expected. After getting a great, running jump on preparing for Christmas, our house was a mess, and we were really dragging. And then, the phone rang.

   When I picked up the phone my caller ID said Claire Spellman; a name that 'd never seen before. I figured that it was someone trying to sell me something. When I said "Hello," a woman said, "I know that you don't know me, but I owe you an apology." As the woman explained, she had opened a Christmas card from us, not noticing that it was addressed to the previous tenant in her apartment. She was quite upset about it, and told me that she had never met the woman who lived there before her, and had no forwarding address for her. I had sent the card to our friend Barbara Hurley who had booked my gospel quartet, The Gospel Messengers, a couple of times. Barbara had surgery earlier in
the fall. I had received an e-mail from her after the surgery, and the last that I knew she was doing all right and was still living at the same address. I assured the woman on the phone that I wasn't upset that she'd inadvertently opened the card, and that I'd most likely be able to get Barbara's mailing address from her church. And then, she wanted to talk about the Christmas card.

   The front cover of our card looked like a present, wrapped with a bow, with the greeting, "Each new day is a gift from God." The woman read the text on the cover to me, saying, "I know all about that!" And then she opened the card and started reading the message on the inside.

    And the greatest gift is Jesus Christ
    One light to guide us all
    One voice to calm all fears
    One touch to heal all wounds
    One heart to bind all hearts"

She kept telling me how beautiful the card was, and how much it meant to her. Then she told me how much she appreciated the note that I had written to my friend Barbara. I had written that she was in our hearts and minds and that my wife and I would keep her in
prayer. And the woman said, "Oh, I appreciate that so much! I need all the prayers that I can get!" She had accepted the prayers as for her. I told her that I'd seen her name on the caller ID on my phone and thought that she might be related to Deacon Spellman, from
our church. She said, "No, we just moved up here from Brooklyn last year. That's probably hard to believe that someone would move up here from Brooklyn." I told her that my wife was from Brooklyn, and one of her brothers still lives there, so it didn't sound unbelievable to me.

   Finally, when she kept apologizing for mistakenly opening the card, I told her to keep the card as hers. She sounded happy to have it. Sometimes, we can raise the spirits of a complete stranger without even knowing that we're doing it. I thanked her for calling me, and wished her a very Merry Christmas.

   And in lifting her spirits, she lifted mine and my wife's.