Love Keeps No Record Of Being Wronged

Christmas card sending is a thoughtful and loving way to convey holiday greetings to loved ones and friends, especially ones that live far away.

For some, however, Christmas card sending can become a duty and a twisted way to measure friendship. When this happens, the beautiful and benevolent tradition of Christmas card sending switches from a friendly, selfless gesture to a non-pleasant, self-seeking one that can over time turn ugly and lead to offenses.

I have known several people who keep a list of all the people to whom they send Christmas cards every year. Then, whenever they receive a card from someone, they check that person's name off their list. If a person on their list does not send them a card, that person's name is crossed off the list so that he/she is never again sent another card.

Whoever practices this form of list-keeping allows bitterness to creep into their heart over the years, adding up until it eventually vanquishes all the goodness in the sending of Christmas cards.

Please never be tempted to make a physical or mental check-list of those who send you cards and those who do not. A true friend will cheerfully send a card to someone whether he/she received one the previous year or not. A true friend will send a card to someone even if there hasn't been much communication between the two of them during the year.

The Bible gives a true definition of love in the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians. Below is an excerpt of this beautiful exposition.

"Love is patient and kind.

Love in not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.

 It does not demand its own way.

It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.

 It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful,

and endures through every circumstance."

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Christmas card sending is to be an act of love in which no rudeness or offence is found. When you send Christmas cards, do not compare the number of cards you give out to the number of cards you receive. Your self-esteem should not rely on who sends you cards and who doesn't. That is not the purpose of this tradition. Christmas card sending is to be a sincere, self-forgetting, heart-felt gesture full of love and kindess.