Give More Presence

By Jeremy White
The Christmas season has come again and time to get frustrated because you don’t know what to buy for others. Time to receive gifts that you probably don’t want or need and will re-wrap them for next yearJ Americans spend 450 Billion on Christmas when 10 Billion would solve the World’s drinking problem. 5 million people die every year due to starvation, that’s about 30,273 per day! And yet, we are more concerned that we get that present this year we wanted. I remember when I was in my older teens and the morning of Christmas Day I read the Christmas story before we opened presents and then when I realized I didn’t get some of the things I wanted it put me in a bad mood. I was ungrateful for all the things that my parents had already done for me and was letting my selfishness get in the way.

If this season is all about Jesus then who cares about the presents. It has taken me 30 years to finally believe and live this. I am the most blessed man in the world as I have a relationship with my savior, a loving wife, a beautiful healthy baby, a roof over my head, family and friends to celebrate life with and a job I’m honored to have. What if you told your loved ones that you don’t want to receive anything for Christmas this year or just one less gift? What if you asked them to put that money to help build a water well in a third world country, to buy blankets for the homeless, to help a family in need with bare essentials or to buy Bibles for missionaries to give to those that have never had one before? To be able to give we can’t be so concerned about receiving. I don’t want to make people feel guilty, I just want us to take inventory of where our heart is. The greatest gift we can give anyone is our presence, not presents.

Check the websites below to see how you can give back:
http://www.adventconspiracy.org/
http://gfa.org/

Grapevine Christmas Parade of Lights, thanks for taking the pic Jacks!

Graydon's first game watching the Buckeyes beat the Wolverines, something he could get used to:)

Graydon loves his peas

Jailbreak

Decorating for Christmas

Graydon was a big help decorating the tree for Christmas this year. He LOVED the lights and could not stop staring at them and saying "oooOOooohhh"!
This expression cracks me up every time!

This was just after a bath...love the mohawk!