Every year people go through the same process.  They wrestle with what to give to those they love, care about, or simply desire to bless.  In our setting (the U.S.) we are incredibly fortunate that God has already provided us with so much.  In fact, in many instances I find myself asking, “What can I give to _______________ he/she already has everything they want.”  Can you relate to that?  Can you relate to it on both sides of the conversation?  I mean, do you when asked, “What do you want for Christmas?” find yourself kind of making ideas up because for all intents and purposes you don’t want anything you don’t already have.

Anyway, over the weekend I received a note from one of the missionaries we support.  She included a lot of what was taking place in her own life, but she also included a thought that has resonated with me for several days now.  I thought her words would be fitting for this as well.

She wrote, “A little over a year ago, the China Daily, China’s English newspaper, reported that there are nearly 300,000 suicides per year in China, one fourth of the world’s total.  Among people ages 15-34, suicide is the leading cause of death; overall it’s fifth.  Every two minutes in this country, one person commits suicide; while another eight make the attempt.

I brought this topic up in my communication class last week.  I didn’t intend to provoke a discussion.  We were talking about crossing cultures in the classroom, and I gave my students a list of scenarios to analyze, situations foreign teachers in China sometimes face.  One of the scenarios involved a teacher who thought a student was contemplating suicide.   Realizing my students needed more information about their own country, I followed up with an email referring to the China Daily article.

In class, one student mentioned she’d had two different students who attempted suicide.  Since my email, four other students have written back, one to tell me about a friend who tried to take her own life, two to say they’d contemplated suicide themselves.  Another engaged me in conversation along with her mom via my student’s text messaging.

In a week that began with a two-day holiday for Corban, the Muslim festival that commemorates Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son, I’ve been pondering the prevalence of suicide in China.  Comparing life in China to life in the United States and other places of wealth, people here might say that lack of opportunity and destitute living conditions are at fault.  It is true that my life and your life are much easier than the lives of the people here.  I wish I could help you see that.  But take away my friends and family, my opportunities — which have been many, my comfortable apartment, and my often overfull belly, and I still wouldn’t end my own life.  Neither would you.  Why?  Because of hope.  Even when everything else is stripped away, there’s always Hope!

I’ve been thinking about gifts I could give some of my friends for Christmas.  What I’d most like to do is wrap up hope and put it under my tree for them.  Then, when MA degrees and religious rituals turn out empty, when longed for jobs bring disillusionment, and marriage and parenting become burdens, they will still have Hope.”

As I read those words I thought to myself, the situations and circumstances around the world are many and they are diverse.  Yet, we all have the most basic and common of needs.  We all need hope.

What do we get for those who seemingly have it all?  We get them that which they can’t possibly purchase for themselves.  We give them the free gift of hope in Jesus Christ.