SPEND LESS (Grace Beattie)
During the war, women had to go without, and had very little money. My dad was in the army.
Somehow, one Christmas, my mother managed to find a second-hand stroller and two big China dolls (one was dark skinned, other was white). On Christmas, I came into the room and my mother showed her gifts to me. They were the best gifts I ever received because she had no money and she had to put her heart and soul into it. How my mother found those China dolls, I don’t know. Because they were valuable and quite fragile, I could push them in the pram but I couldn’t really play with them or they might break.
I still remember those gifts to this day!
Read
Mark 6:8-9
Challenge (by Devon Wagler)
This is a piece of what Jesus said to his disciples when he sent them out into the world. Can you imagine hearing this? Going traveling out for an unspecified amount of time without money or supplies isn’t exactly my idea of effective. But I think that Jesus is making an incredibly important point here; he’s telling them, ‘you don’t need as much as you think you need to be effective.’
How much do you think you need to make Christmas meaningful? How much needs to be on your credit card, how much extra food do you need to make? Think about how much money you could save by getting gifts on boxing day sales instead of December. But most importantly, spending less is not completely about saving money, it’s about having more to give away.