A Christmas Story

I once knew a little boy, who turned into a man, who couldn't succeed at what he loved doing no matter how hard he tried and couldn't get a lucky break no matter what he did.

He was persistent and never gave up until one day, Christmas Eve to be exact, his heart stopped beating. A heart broken down by years of disappointment at never being successful at what he loved doing, at what he did best.

While he was lying on the table being pronounced dead by the doctor in the emergency room of a Chicago hospital, something was happening the doctor could not see.

The man found himself floating out of his body as an Angel stood by his side. Bewildered and in tears he was surprised that he rated an Angel at the time of his demise.

"Are you ready to take a journey with me," the Angel asked?

With sadness in his eyes, the man said yes but secretly wished for another chance to try one more time to be a success at what he loved doing, at what he did best.

The Angel read his thoughts and told him a secret about being the success he dreamed of becoming that stopped him dead in his tracks that Christmas Eve.

When you were young, people shamed you all the time. They killed off your heart and most of your soul and that's why you haven't succeeded. You buried those feelings alive and they tripped you up every step you took and you tried too hard and pushed success away from your door.

The shame you felt, that you denied, had hidden within it a secret command that allowed you to succeed at what others wanted you to do but not at what you did best. You see if you succeeded, you would feel that shame again, from the past, and wished you were dead.

Your fear of that feeling ran your life and undermined your every attempt to succeed at what you loved to do, at what you did the best. If you became successful at what you did, the shame you buried, as a little boy, would still be alive. Although success would be yours, the emptiness caused by shame from your past would prompt you to commit suicide instead of calling out to God for help in healing your past.

God loved you too much to allow you to end your life that way and that's why God stopped the beating of your heart and sent me to meet you instead. Now that you know the problem and what needs to be done, go back to earth and face your feelings of shame head on and the success you have always wanted will be yours, knocking on your door.

And with those words spoken from the Angel by his side, the man woke up Christmas morning, not on a table in a hospital morgue but from out of a dream, finding himself lying on his bed.

After the Christmas holidays, with a new understanding of what stopped him in the past, everything he touched was a success. When he felt shame from the past he replaced it with the "gift of love" that came to him in his dream that Christmas eve, the night he thought he had died and found an Angel by his side.


The Little Boy Who Did... (A Christmas Story) © 2005 Frederick Zappone, Spiritual Success Club. All Rights Reserved.