"Is this your car?" the lad asked with envy.
Paul nodded. “My brother gave it to me for Christmas.” The boy looked astounded. “You mean your brother gave it to you, and it didn’t cost you anything? Gosh, I wish…”
He hesitated, and Paul knew what he was going to wish. He was going to wish that he had a brother like that. But what the lad said jarred Paul all the say down to his heels.
“I wish,” the boy went on, “that I could be a brother like that.” Paul looked at the boy in astonishment, then impulsively, he added, “Would you like to ride in my automobile?”
“Oh yes, I’d love that!”
After a short ride the urchin turned and with his eyes aglow said, “Mister, would you mind driving in front of my house?”
Paul smiled a little He thought he knew what the lad wanted. He wanted to show his neighbors that he could ride home in a big automobile. But Paul was wrong again.
“Will you stop right where those steps are?” the boy asked. He ran up the steps. Then in a little while, Paul heard him coming back, but he was not coming fast, he was carrying his little polio crippled brother. He sat down on the bottom step, then sort of squeezed right up against him and pointed to the car.
“There she is Buddy, just like I told you upstairs. His brother gave it to him for Christmas, and it didn’t cost him a cent, and someday I’m gonna give you one just like it. Then you can see for yourself all the pretty things in the Christmas windows that I have been trying to tell you about.”
Paul got out and lifted the little lad into the front seat of his car. The shiny-eyed older brother climbed in beside him and the three of them began a memorable holiday ride.
That Christmas Eve, Paul learned what Jesus meant when He said, “It is more blessed to give.”
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