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The Singing Christmas Tree
My brother John was a handyman… but there was one thing he couldn’t fix.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
I was rummaging through my attic for the Christmas decorations when I saw it. The tree. Not a real tree of course, but an artificial one I bought the year before. It stood about 18-inches tall and had it all—glimmering ornaments, fiber optic branch tips that emitted a hypnotic array of blue, pink, green and gold sparkling lights, and a gold base that rotated the entire tree while playing Christmas carols. At least that’s what was it was supposed to do. It might as well be called a lemon tree—it never worked. I’d almost completely forgotten about it.
My brother John had tried to fix it. John was a carpenter by trade and had the “magic touch”—he was our family’s go-to handyman. I recalled how he hummed “Joy to the World,” as he took the tree base apart and removed a tiny motor that looked microscopic in his large hands. But then he frowned and shook his head. “It’ll never work,” he said. “The gears aren’t turning. And I have no idea where you can get a replacement motor.”
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I’d saved the tree instead of throwing it away, hoping I could coax John into tinkering with it again the following Christmas. But that spring, John was killed in a senseless shooting while out on a carpentry job. The sudden tragedy devastated our entire family. My parents, John’s wife and their three children, my brother Joe and his wife and daughter were all coming over to my house for Christmas, but it was hard to imagine a joyful celebration without John.
“Oh, John, I wish you could send us a sign,” I cried out, loud enough that my voice echoed among the eaves. I immediately felt foolish. Did I really expect an answer?
I picked up some decorations and grabbed the tree by its trunk. I should put this in the trash, I thought.
Instead, I was overcome with a sudden urge. I carried the tree over to an outlet and plugged it in.
All at once, the fiber optics lit up. The tree began to spin. And a carol began to play.
“Joy to the word, the Lord has come,” it sang.
The tree hasn’t worked all the time since… only at certain moments, on Christmas. But whenever it does turn on and sing, we think about John and his magic touch. It’s like he’s still fixing things—helping our broken hearts to heal.
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Your Comments
This story brought tears to my eyes- both happy and sad. I can't imagine losing a brother and may God be with your family through all the difficult times without him.
My mom passed away in July 2005. As a remembrance my sister in law gave me a rose bush to plant as reminder of mom. I planted it, but did not take care of it as I should. (I don't have a green thumb like mom) The bush did not thrive and did not bloom. Summer passed and gave way to fall. All Souls day my dad and brothers and I were planning to meet at church for a special service for those who passed away that year. I was in the yard that morning and walked to where I had planted the rose bush, which never bloomed. I walked closer and saw some pink....you guessed it, one single pink bloom.
Send it to me and I will see if I can fix it for you and send it back. Merry Christmas.E-mail me and i will send addy.
Bill.
Such a wonderful and touching story..
I loved what she wrote and would like to assure her angels do work for us. I have had several such events and it did me good to see that so many others are experiencing the same.They are up there and they care for us., under the guidance of God. iN FACT i HAVE WRITTEN A BOOK ABOUT THESE AMAZING EXPERIENCES WHEN i REALLY NEEDED HELP.It is called DONT DIE WONDERING;MIRACLES sTILL HAPPEN! It can be obtained at Amazon.com and is written by Patricia E. Meyer LCSW
I have no doughy there is angles,some case we know how the angles are,other times we do not know.Just trust in God.After all a angle appear to Mary,tell her she was to conceives and she was the mother of Jesus.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful experience.
What a lovely story. My God shall meet all of our needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus!
Just want to share a conversation I had with Pam from Hospice one Tuesday afternoon. She was my Hospice contact for our father that passed away on September 19th 2011.
She said they like to call 2 months after the passing of loved ones to check on them and see if they are doing ok and if they need counseling/someone to talk with. She said any of the family is welcome to call and make appointments with Pathways of Hope if needed.
I told her how much the family appreciated all their nurses and volunteers and everything they did for dad. I told her we especially appreciated the nurse that came that Sunday night before dad passed. Hospice was very overloaded with work at that time and they were not going to put dad on crisis care until the next morning.
So when the Hospice nurse showed up on Sunday night about 8PM I was very surprised. I asked her about it and she said "well I only live a short distance away and heard that a family/resident needed someone, so I came tonight". I told her at that time (and others did too) that she was an Angel sent by God for dad.
Pam was excited to hear that and she said we have a program that we can send an electronic flower/rose to someone for the family with an explanation of how much she was appreciated. I said that would be great. She said "I have your dad's case pulled up here and the nurses always at least add their initials to the chart about every hour with their updates".
She had me hold for a few minutes and then said " I can't believe this, it's never happened before. There are no initials or anything on your dads chart about someone being there that night. I will have to investigate this.
I laughed and said, See I told you she was an Angel sent by God. :-)
She told me she would try to find out who it was and call me back with a name but I haven't heard anything yet. I told John that even if she is a real person she is still an Angel to us. But I do believe God can send Angels if needed.
I read this verse on Facebook this morning from a daily reading I receive:
Luke 4:10
"He will command His Angels concerning you to guard you carefully"
I told Pam that I read about Angel sightings in Guidepost magazines and she said she does too. She said she had an experience with an Angel one night when she was in need. :-) This phone call happened quite a few weeks ago and I haven't heard back from Pam yet so I'm assuming she did not find out who the angel nurse was yet.
I believe this was an angel sent to our father by God!!!!
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