One Christmas when my mother was a girl, she received a string of pearls from her father. Since her parents were divorced-an unusual situation in the 1950s-she treasured the pearls as a sign of her father’s love. When he passed away her senior year in high school, the pearls took on even greater significance.
When I was growing up, my mother talked often about the pearls, but my sister and I never saw them. Mom kept them safe in their silk-lined velvet box tucked in her jewelry box. For dressy occasions, she wore other nice jewelry, but never the pearls.
The pearls were too precious to wear.
What if the strand broke and even a single pearl was lost? What if the clasp broke and she lost them forever? She couldn’t risk it. Better to keep them cocooned in silky security.
When my mother offered to let me wear her pearls on my wedding day, I was deeply touched. This was more than “something old” or “something borrowed,” but a sign that she trusted me and loved me.
A few days before the wedding, my mother pulled the box from seclusion. My sister and I watched with curiosity and awe.
The pearls had turned a deep grayish-yellow, they were flaking, and some had fallen apart.
They were fake.
For over thirty years, my mother nurtured a piece of costume jewelry. All that time she could have worn them and enjoyed them without worry. Her father gave them to her for a purpose-to wear them and feel lovely and ladylike and special. He didn’t mean for her to hide them away.
On our wedding day, my husband gave me a strand of real pearls. They symbolize my husband’s sacrificial love for me-they were expensive for a graduate student with half-Scottish blood.
I vowed never to tuck them away but to wear them often. Yes, I’m careful. I inspect the cord and knots and clasp, and I plan to have them restrung when necessary. But I wear them and enjoy them. That’s why my husband gave them to me.
Our heavenly Father gives us gifts too-brilliant and costly. We should cherish them, but we should use them. Whether our individual gifts involve serving, teaching, encouragement, evangelism, or even money-they have a purpose. The Lord wants us to use our gifts to bless others and to spread the message of His love.
While pearls make women look lovely, using our God-given gifts for His kingdom makes us even lovelier. And just as pearls grow more lustrous with frequent wear, our gifts from God grow in beauty and strength the more we use them.
This Christmas I plan to wear my string of pearls, a sign of my husband’s love-and to display my pearls from heaven, a sign of my Father’s love.
Have a lustrous Christmas!
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Sarah Sundin lives in northern California with her husband and three children. She works on-call as a hospital pharmacist. Her first novel, A Distant Melody, historical fiction set during World War II, will be published by Revell in March 2010. Please visit her at http://www.sarahsundin.com or her blog or find her on Facebook.
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A three strand pearl necklace will be given away on New Year’s Day. All you need to do to have a chance of winning is leave a comment here. Come back on New Year’s Day to see if you won!
12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info
Lori Copeland has been writing for twenty-five years and has over three million copies of her books in print. She began her writing career in 1982, writing for the secular book market. In 1995, after many years of writing, Lori sensed that God was calling her to use her gift of writing to honor Him. It was at that time that she began writing for the Christian book market.
To date, she has more than 95 books published, including Now and Always, Simple Gifts, Unwrapping Christmas, and Monday Morning Faith, which was a finalist for the 2007 Christy Awards. Lori was inducted into the Springfield Writers Hall of Fame in 2000.
Lori lives in the beautiful Ozarks with her husband Lance. They have three sons, two daughter-in-laws, and five wonderful grandchildren. Lori and Lance are very involved in their church, and active in supporting mission work in Mali, West Africa.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Christmas trees, twinkling lights, skating in the park, and holiday displays are the hallmark elements for celebrating Jesus birth for the sentimental residents of Nativity, Missouri. Will fiscal responsibility replace Christmas their traditions when times are tough? Though their priorities and methods clash, Roni Elliot and Jake Brisco want the same thing, for the town to prosper. As the two get to know each other better, each begins to gain a new perspective on what the real wealth of Nativity and the season might be.
The Christmas Lamp is a sweet and cozy book for the Christmas season about the small dying town of Nativity, Missouri and efforts to save it. When financial planner Jake Brisco comes to help, his first step is to cut expenditures and the townspeople become discouraged when the first things to go are traditional Christmas events and decorations. Although Roni resents his methods and apparent cold heart, she soon finds that her first impressions of Jake were mistaken.
Will Roni, Jake, and the town of Nativity recognize the true spirit of Christmas before it is too late? What about Jake and Roni – will they find that they are right for each other? You can pick up your own copy of The Christmas Lamp and learn the answers during a relaxing evening by the fire.
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
***Special thanks to Jennifer Willingham of Simon and Schuster for sending me a review copy.***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Tammy Maltby is a writer, speaker, and media personality. For eight years, she was the co-host of the Emmy Award-winning television talk show, Aspiring Women. She serves on the board of the National Women’s Ministry Association, Christian Women in Media and Arts, and Women of Courage International. She and her family live in Colorado Springs, CO.
Marci Alborghetti has been writing only slightly longer than she’s been reading. In seventh grade she received her first writing prize for a zany Halloween story. The prize? A five dollar gift certificate to a local bookstore. She was hooked. The Christmas Glass is her fourteenth book, and she is currently at work on a sequel as well as a non-fiction book about service. Some of her other books include: Prayer Power: How to Pray When You Think You Can’t, A Season in the South and Twelve Strong Women of God.
She and her husband, Charlie Duffy, live in New London, Connecticut and the San Francisco Bay area. While in New London she facilitates the Saint James Literary Club.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
In the tradition of The Christmas Shoes and A Christmas on Jane Street, the heartwarming story of The Christmas Glass shows how, today as always, the Christmas miracle works its wonders in the human heart.
In the early days of World War II in Italy, Anna, a young widow who runs a small orphanage, carefully wraps her most cherished possessions — a dozen hand-blown, German-made, Christmas ornaments, handed down by her mother — and sends them to a cousin she hasn’t seen in years.
Anna is distressed to part with her only tangible reminder of her mother, but she worries that the ornaments will be lost or destroyed in the war, especially now that her orphanage has begun to secretly shelter Jewish children. Anna’s young cousin Filomena is married with two-year-old twins when she receives the box of precious Christmas glass.
After the war, Filomena emigrates to America, where the precious ornaments are passed down through the generations. After more than forty years, twelve people come to possess a piece of Christmas glass, some intimately connected by family bonds, some connected only through the history of the ornaments.
As Christmas Day approaches, readers join each character in a journey of laughter and tears, fractures and healings, as Filomena, now an eighty-four-year-old great-grandmother, brings them all to what will be either a wondrous reunion or a disaster that may shatter them all like the precious glass they cherish.
The Unfinished Gift is a beautifully told story perfect for the Christmas season but relevant for any time of the year. With a historical setting during World War Two, it nevertheless relates spiritual truths that span the generations. While there are times when the reader will definitely want a box of tissues close at hand, there are other moments filled with humor and joy that will prompt a smile or even a chuckle.
The story centers around Patrick, a boy who has just lost his mother to a tragic accident shortly before Christmas. Because his father is a pilot fighting in the war overseas, he is taken to live with the grandfather he has never met – an embittered and grumpy old man who does not know what to do with Patrick. The Unfinished Gift recounts the misunderstandings that caused the estrangement between Patrick’s grandfather and father, the pride and stubborness that kept them apart, and the unexpected circumstances that brought about restoration to a family.
Dan Walsh has penned an extraordinary first novel that left me wanting more. I hope to see future books by this author soon.
“Available at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.”
Patrick Collins is seven years old, and on his Christmas list are only three items. He wants the army to find his father. He wants to leave his grandfather’s house. And, for reasons even he doesn’t understand, he wants the soldier that’s tucked away in his grandfather’s attic. Set at Christmastime in 1943, The Unfinished Gift tells in an engaging, simple style the story of a family, and reminds us of the surprising things that affect powerful change in our hearts–like a young boy’s prayers, a shoebox full of love letters, and even an old wooden soldier, long forgotten. This nostalgic story of forgiveness will engage readers everywhere.
Read the first two chapters of The Unfinished Gift here on Scribd or download a pdf here:
The Christmas Dog is a heart warming book that should help the reader prepare her own heart for the Christmas season. It is one of those books to curl up by the fire with on a cold winter evening after a busy day of shopping, cooking, or decorating the house. The Christmas Dog tells a story of three people – each one alone and misunderstood as Christmas approaches. Because of their own pain and fears, each of them has chosen isolation and made erroneous judgments about the others. Fortunately, a stray dog forces them to interact and they soon learn the power of forgiveness and the importance of looking past the surface to find the true person within. Both poignant and humorous, The Christmas Dog is perfect for the Christmas season.
I highly recommend The Christmas Dog but since I don’t want to reveal too much, I will leave it for you to read it for yourself.
“Available at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.”
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Betty Kowalski isn’t looking forward to the holidays. She just can’t seem to find Christmas in her heart. Maybe it’s because her husband is gone. Maybe it’s because she’s missing her children. Or maybe it has something to do with her obnoxious new neighbor, who seems to be tearing his house apart and rearranging it on the lawn.
But when a mangy dog appears at her doorstep, the stage is set for Betty to learn what Christmas is really all about.
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Too Precious to Wear by Sarah Sundin
Sarah Sundin lives in northern California with her husband and three children. She works on-call as a hospital pharmacist. Her first novel, A Distant Melody, historical fiction set during World War II, will be published by Revell in March 2010. Please visit her at http://www.sarahsundin.com or her blog or find her on Facebook.
A three strand pearl necklace will be given away on New Year’s Day. All you need to do to have a chance of winning is leave a comment here. Come back on New Year’s Day to see if you won! 
Patrick Collins is seven years old, and on his Christmas list are only three items. He wants the army to find his father. He wants to leave his grandfather’s house. And, for reasons even he doesn’t understand, he wants the soldier that’s tucked away in his grandfather’s attic. Set at Christmastime in 1943, The Unfinished Gift tells in an engaging, simple style the story of a family, and reminds us of the surprising things that affect powerful change in our hearts–like a young boy’s prayers, a shoebox full of love letters, and even an old wooden soldier, long forgotten. This nostalgic story of forgiveness will engage readers everywhere.
