Let me tell you a story about a young boy. The man who told me this, it was his story; we’ll say his name was Bill. I’ll try to tell it just as he told it to me.

 

As a young boy he was with his younger brother on a bus, traveling from Cincinnati to Canton, Ohio, on Christmas Eve. They didn’t have their parents with them because, he said, “My parents had to go to Pittsburgh, so they couldn’t be with us. So they left us with a best friend of my mother’s who then put us on the bus.

 

“We’re on the bus, and I’m looking through the window and seeing the snow beginning, light snow flakes are falling as I’m watching. My brother is sleeping next to me. As I watch the snow begins to get stronger, and snow flakes begin to rush past the window as the bus is going along. So I woke my brother up, because he always felt he wanted to have an adventure wherever we went and it usually seemed to pass us by. I thought maybe this would be the opportunity, that we’d run into a snow bank or something and maybe boarded by bandits, so I thought I’d wake him up.

 

“So I woke him up and I let him sit in my place by the window because our mother always said that we needed to exchange places and not fight over it, so we always did it even though my mother wasn’t there. We exchanged places and he pressed his face against the glass and watched. He kept saying to me, ‘More snow, more snow, more snow.’ And indeed, the snow kept coming and coming, and soon the bus was slowed to a crawl; it went slower and slower, and we felt it pull into a gas station. I’d heard the bus driver talking on his radio asking what he should do; he must have been told to pull into this gas station and he did. There was a restaurant there in the form of an old railroad car.

 

“The bus driver stood up and said, ‘We all need to go into the restaurant. So bundle up.’ So we bundled up, pulled our hats over our ears and put on our mittens or gloves and we all made our way into the restaurant. Once in the restaurant we didn’t know what was going to happen, and the bus driver said, ‘It looks like we might have to stay here tonight until the roads are clear, until the snow ploughs are out and clear the snow away.’ And I got frightened and my brother started to cry. He said, ‘I want to go to Aunt Alice’s.’

 

“That’s where we were on there way toward, our uncle and aunt in Canton, Ohio, and we would meet with our parents there. We were worried, and all the people were worried. They didn’t want to stay with strangers on Christmas Eve, of all times. So they were all upset. But pretty soon they began to settle down and some of the adults started drinking coffee or eating chicken salad sandwiches, and some just sat staring at their hands.

 

“Then this strange woman came up to my brother and me and said, ‘You’re too young to be traveling alone on that bus.’ Then she said, ‘I want to buy you some hot chocolate.’ So she took us to the counter and bought hot chocolate. And we had hot chocolate. But my brother kept crying and crying; he was really unhappy. He said, ‘I want to go to Aunt Alice’s and sing the manger song and eat cookies and have presents. I want to go. . . .’ He burst into tears again. I didn’t know how to placate him and settle him down.

 

“But a strange thing happened just about that time; all the people began to talk to each other. I noticed that little groups started forming; they were laughing and joking with one another and telling each other about their families, where they’d come from and where they were going and where they were spending Christmas.

 

“Pretty soon there was a lot of excitement going on; I thought this would cheer up my little brother, but it didn’t. He kept saying, ‘I want to go to my aunties, I want to sing the manger song, and I want to eat cookies, and . . .’ He just started crying all over again.

 

“The strange lady who had introduced herself as Mrs. Margaret Mills and who had told me that her husband was dead – I don’t know why she told me that, but she said her husband was dead – came up to us again and said, ‘Why don’t you go and sit down in the booth?’ So we went and sat in the booth and she kept looking at us. Finally she came over to us and said, ‘I’d like to join you. Do you mind?’ And she sat down, and she took up a lot of room because she was a big lady.

 

“She kept looking at my brother. And then the strangest thing that I’d ever seen happened. Her face, which was kind of ugly and scared me a little bit because she had a big nose and a huge neck, began to soften as she looked at my brother. She looked at him, and she began to sing softly, ‘Away in a manger, no crib for a bed . . .’ And she went on singing like that, just to us. My brother looked up; he was startled at first, and then he reached out his hand to this woman’s hand and they both started singing together, ‘The stars in the bright sky looked down where he lay . . .’ They sang loud and everybody started to join in and a young man unpacked a guitar, and the bus driver took out a harmonica, and they began to sing carols. They sang so many carols that anyone had ever heard.

 

“And that’s how we spent Christmas Eve together. Then we all settled down.

 

“I had a card in my pocket with my uncle’s telephone number on it; my mother had pinned it inside my pocket. And the bus driver came and asked me, did I have a phone number for the people who were going to meet us? So I gave him that card. My mother had pinned it there because I was always losing stuff. And the bus driver went off to call my aunt. I didn’t hear from him for a while, but then he called my name. I was just thinking that I’d love to talk to my Aunt Alice and he called me; he said, ‘Your Aunt Alice is on the phone.’ So I went to the phone and Aunt Alice was so calm, and she said, ‘You know, your parents are out right now; they’re at church with your cousins. But they’ll be back and they’ll come to get you in the morning, so you stay where you are right now and everything’s going to be all right and they’ll be there to get you once the snow ploughs have been.’

 

“I felt pretty good after that, I wasn’t too worried; my brother was a little bit upset but feeling better with all the carol singing. So we snuggled down together like everybody else did, leaning against each other or on the floor or up against the counter, on tables, and we all slept that night of Christmas Eve.

 

“ next morning, I knew my parents were coming to get us so we started saying goodbye to everybody because they started boarding the bus. It was about 11 o’clock and the snow ploughs had gone through. They were boarding the bus, and the last one to go was Mrs. Mills. She came up to us and looked at us. She said, ‘Boys, I’ll never forget you at this Christmastime; you’ve been my Christmas present and I will always remember you like that.’ She kissed us both on the forehead and she boarded the bus and I never saw her again.

 

“That night, we were settled comfortably at Aunt Alice’s. We were around the fire and we were going to start singing carols, and I told my Dad the whole story. I said to him, ‘I wonder what she meant by that being her Christmas present? We really didn’t give her anything. What could she have meant by that?’ He said, ‘Son, I don’t really know, but it could be that somehow you brought her a gift that she would treasure always, something that we don’t always know about. You see, a true gift, we don’t always know what a true gift is from the outside. But from the inside it’s something really special, it carries more value than the apparent substance of the gift. So,’ he said, ‘it may have been your cute faces together that she saw or it may have been that you were not afraid of her, or that you liked her and you sang with her; any of those things. But just know that the gift you gave her was precious and I want you to hold that gift in your heart and make that your gift to me also.’

 

“Then they all gathered around the piano, and I joined them but I was thinking about Mrs. Margaret Mills and how much I missed her and what a lovely, lovely voice came out of that strange body. And I was thinking, wherever she is I hope that she’s with someone who likes her singing as much as I did.”

 

 

You know, Christmas is an inner story, isn’t it? The Christmas experience is an inner experience, where it’s the Christmas of your life and not just the Christmas of everybody’s but a Christmas of your life. It can be that. We’ve all had different experiences of Christmas but may this be for you the Christmas of your life, where you recognize and feel and experience the Christ born in you this Christmas. Feel that, and know that. The Christ will, literally, be born into your awareness and will become a part of your consciousness and a vital part of your humanity from this time on.

 

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

 

Merry Christmas!

 

Rev. Alan a. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-seven years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at Spiritual Solutions. Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.

 

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