The Gift of the Magi

(or...Do Gifts Need to be Sacrifices?)


The Gift of the Magi is the bittersweet story of a young man whose greatest treasure was his pocket watch given to him by his grandfather and a his wife whose greatest treasure was her beautiful long hair. The story shows their all-encompassing love for each other,


In order to give gifts to each other at Christmas and sorely lacking any funds to do so, the man gave his wife a beautiful comb for her lovely hair by selling his prized pocket watch. She gave her husband a chain for his pocket watch by cutting her hair and selling it.


The story tells of their great love for each other. So much so that they would sacrifice their most treasured possessions to enhance the most prized possession of each other. Unwittingly neither can use the physical gift.

(All right her hair could grow back eventually).

But what is the moral? You have to give away the most treasured thing you have for love?

Maybe sometimes. In the right spirit, you see the gift of love as the most important thing of all. Each spouse lost something valuable in order to show love. While this was a beautiful tale of love, the story also involves sacrifice. The sacrifice was of a material nature, not a soul nature. I don't believe you have to give away the best part of yourself to have great love. Nothing in either of the couple's spirit was diminished by their gift, only enhanced. I think that is the point of the writer.

I gave up my last vestige of my former life when I sold my last home. I felt like God had taken everything from me - health, my marriage, money, my work. All I had left was my house. Now I was being asked to give that up too. It was a nice house. Although it wasn't a house I LOVED, it was mine. So I didn't exactly give up something like the true love couple did in the Magi story.

There was enormous struggle and challenge with my decision to move, mostly of my own making, but everything that God "took away" was brought back even more glorious. The morning glories that I loved outside my kitchen window were replaced by a whole hillside of them. It brought tears to my eyes the first time I saw them. My broken-down gazebo was replaced by a solid beautiful Tuscan style one with an ocean view. Everything was so much better when I let go of the old energy.

New energy is here.

It is waiting to gift itself to you.

Accept and open yourself to this glorious present.
And the Gift of the Magi, the most beautiful treasure you can imagine, will be yours.

Blessings to you this Christmas season,

Terri Marie