In the big town near us there is a real train that does Christmas rides that go along with the movie “The Polar Express.” This got me interested, so I watched the movie. It was alright, but to be really honest – I was rather let down by the movie. I – thought – I knew how it was going to end. I just knew it would end a certain way, but – it didn’t.
Here is how I thought it would end. I thought that the lonely boy, “the little boy from the other side of the tracks”, would go home, but not find his Christmas gift immediately. Instead the hero boy, “the main character little boy” would go home and wake up Christmas morning to find the exact gift that the lonely boy had wanted “all his life” under the hero boy’s very own tree as a gift for himself. Either that or the hero boy would go to the store and buy this gift. Then the hero boy would take the gift, put it on the front door of the lonely boy, and just leave it as a gift. A thoughtful, selfless, loving gift. Along with this gift, the hero boy would then always go out of his way to be a friend to the lonely boy.
Because in our broken and fallen world, the lonely boy doesn’t always get the gift that he has always wanted just by believing in Santa. Usually the only way he receives that gift is if someone is moved in his or her heart by a power greater than himself to give to someone else in need.
This was illustrated to our family recently when we heard the story of a man seeing a large family with natural born as well as adopted children (12 children in all) eating supper at a restaurant. For some reason the man got the idea to pay for this whole family to get to go on the local Polar Express train ride, something that they could not have been able to afford to do on their own. The man called around town till he found someone who knew this family. The Man anonymously supplied the money for this family to get to go on the train ride. But they didn’t get to go because they believed in Santa, but because someone cared enough to share.
Just an idea to think about this Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you all!
Blessings, Betty
