My Christmas Cactus has faithfully bloomed at Christmas for the past seven years.  I don’t do anything special to insure that it  blooms.  It stays in the same spot in front of a window that brings in morning sunlight.  It is in a clay pot that sits on a drain saucer filled with stones.  I water it about twice a week.

Each year when the pink flowers burst out of their buds, I think about the family that gave me the Christmas Cactus.  When I worked in an outpatient center at a Children’s Hospital, I helped a  young boy with Spina Bifida.  He could not walk and he had a severe pressure sore on his back.  This boy had the brightest smile and cheerful attitude.  He and his parents spoke only a few words of  English.  They came to the United States as refugees.  Grateful for the care that their son received at the hospital, the parents gave some of the staff a small Christmas Cactus.  My cactus has more than tripled in size.  I wonder how the little boy has grown.  Every year my cactus reminds me of that boy and how the greatest gifts have humble beginnings.  Then I think about another humble beginning…. God’s greatest  gift to mankind began in a baby.  Merry Christmas!