Welcome to
the 12 Pearls of Christmas blog series!
Merry Christmas
from Pearl Girls™! We hope you enjoy
these Christmas “Pearls of Wisdom” from the authors who were so kind to donate
their time and talents! If you miss a few posts, you’ll be able go back through
and read them on this blog throughout the next few days.
We’re giving
away a pearl necklace in celebration of the holidays, as well as some items
(books, a gift pack, music CDs) from the contributors! Enter
now on Facebook or at the Pearl Girls
blog. The winner will announced on January 2, 2013 at
the Pearl Girls blog.
If you are
unfamiliar with Pearl Girls™, please visit www.pearlgirls.info and see what
we’re all about. In short, we exist to support the work of charities that help
women and children in the US and around the globe. Consider purchasing a copy
of Mother
of Pearl, Pearl
Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace or one of the Pearl Girls products (all
GREAT gifts!) to help support Pearl Girls.
***
When God Wraps
a Present . . .
By Julie
Lessman
We’ve all heard
the adage “it’s better to give than receive,” but never have I
agreed more than the year I was engaged to the love of my life.
It was truly a
Christmas to remember—spiced egg nog and snickerdoodles and shimmering presents
unwrapped in a circle of love. Of course, we all ooohed and ahhhed over each
gift opened, one at a time, reveling in the glow of excitement for giver and
recipient alike.
And then it was
my turn. Everyone waited while I tore into a small box, anticipation fairly
shimmering in my fiancé's eyes.
“Do you like it?”
he asked, grinning like a little boy when I unearthed a very pretty silver
watch.
No. “It’s beautiful,” I said with a
shaky giggle, slipping it on and holding it up for everyone to admire. I
quickly gave him a sweet kiss on the lips. “Thank you so much, babe—what a
perfect gift!”
Perfectly
awful, that is. You see,
when you are a twenty-eight-year-old Type A career woman who is very set
in her ways, there are just some things you have to buy for herself—books,
costume jewelry, purses … a watch.
All right, yes,
I’ll admit it—“high maintenance” is my middle name because heaven knows I’m one
of the most particular people on the planet, especially when it comes to
watches. They have to be digital, waterproof, have a day and date window, an
alarm, chronograph, second hand, both silver and gold metal to wear with either
silver or gold jewelry, stretch band skinny enough to fit my wrist . . . and a
GPS. Okay, I’m pulling your watch chain on the last one, but you get the
picture—NOT easy to find, especially with numbers big enough for someone blind
as a bat.
So, yes, I faked
it, of course, thanking my soon-to-be husband for the “prettiest watch I had
ever owned,” because it was—I just didn’t like it. But did I “fake it” with
God? Uh, no. I went straight to His throne in prayer and begged Him
to help me love this watch because the man I loved gave it to me and I just
flat-out didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I even went so far as to write the
prayer request on a piece of paper and put it in my Bible so I could “wrap” it
in prayer every single day, which I did.
Until the fateful
moment years later when my husband used my Bible one day and found the note.
“You don’t like
your watch??” he says, confronting me with hurt in his tone while his eyes
flicked to the pretty watch on my wrist.
He held up the
note. “You told God you hated it in this note I found in your Bible.”
Uh-oh . . . BUSTED!
And you know
what? I did!!
***
Award-winning
author of “The Daughters of Boston” and “Winds of Change” series, Julie Lessman
was ACFW’s 2009 Debut Author of the Year and voted #1 Romance Author of the
year in Family Fiction magazine’s 2012 and 2011 Readers Choice
Awards. Winner of 14 RWA awards, she also appeared on Booklist’s 2010 list
for Top 10 Inspirational Fiction and has just released her 7th novel, A
Light in the Window: An Irish Christmas Love Story. You can contact Julie
at her
website, on Facebook, on
Twitter at @julielessman, or read excerpts of her favorite romantic and
spiritual scenes from each of her books at http://www.julielessman.com/excerpts/.
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