Christmas Memories
by Chaplain Jim Robinson
Christmas--I sit here thinking, trying to remember Christmas' past. It astounds me that I remember only in a very hazy way even the last Christmas. I don't remember specifics but I remember the joy of having all our children here with us and the joy of knowing Him.
Thinking back over my entire lifetime I can really only remember clearly two Christmas days.
Christmas of 1967 is fixed in my mind. I was a Navy Chaplain. The preceding year the Marines, with whom I served, provided material and money to build a church and school on Lyson Island about 20 miles off the coast of Vietnam. It had been almost completed some time before but we returned on Christmas day to present the congregation with a stained glass window to be installed in the church. It depicted Christ calling the fisherman and was done in a Vietnamese setting. (The picture from which the window was made hangs on our living room wall.) We "chartered" a Navy patrol boat to take us out to the Island with the window. I remember we shot rifle grenades and fired small arms at floating targets on the trip. It was more like the fourth of July than Christmas.
The Christmas I remember most was 1955. I was stationed in Germany in the U.S. Army. I had gone home on emergency leave in early December because my father was in the Veterans hospital at Lansing, Kansas and dying. I was overjoyed to find him not only alive but alive in Christ! Most of my memory as a child he was not in fellowship with the Lord. He had been a member of the Free Methodist Church in Lawrence, Kansas during my growing up years, but had fallen away and was dismissed from the church. He now shared the Christian faith that had been mine since a junior in high school and it was exciting to me. My emergency leave was up before Christmas and I was returning to my duty station in Boeblingen, Germany. I reported to Fort Dix to await transportation to Germany and was assigned to fire furnaces. I remember tending furnaces in a number of barracks and a mess hall during the night Christmas Eve and all day Christmas. My good uniform was covered with coal dust but I was happy because my father was now a Christian. I was so conscience of the presence of Christ! My hands were working with the coal shovel but my mind was free to sing Christmas carols and praise the dear Lord Jesus. My heart was bursting with joy and praise. All this and I was on my way back to Germany where my wife, the dearest woman in the world, was waiting for me. What a joy!
Isn't it true for all of us? It matters not what our hands have to do. If we have the Lord of Christmas we can let the joy flow! And in addition to all that we are on our way home to heaven to be with the King. Let's rejoice on the way and reach out and take as many with us as we can. Praise the Christ Child! Praise the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!