Kitty Helton

Not too long ago, my wife, Kena, and I took a mini vacation. We decided to go to Gatlinburg for the weekend. Well, one thing we didn’t consider, and honestly didn’t even know existed was the annual Gatlinburg Christmas parade.

For those of you who are like us and don’t have a clue as to what this parade is, well, let me just tell you. It’s a major parade that everyone in the southeastern United States attends (or maybe it just felt that way). Anyway, we found ourselves right in the middle of it. Since we were there, we decided why not enjoy it.

One thing that we decided to do is to make use of the Gatlinburg trolley system. We parked at the visitor center outside of town and rode the trolley up for a quarter a person. Our logic was that we could save on parking, not have to drive in all that traffic, and not be bothered by having to find a parking space. I thought this was the best idea since sliced bread! That is until later on that night.

You see, Gatlinburg actually shuts down the trolley system during the parade. Which means that anyone wanting to make it out of town during the parade is out of luck. So we found ourselves waiting until the parade was over in weather that felt like it was 20 below. Of course we were excited when we saw the trolley cars moving again, so we made our way to the trolley station, along with 8 million other people (okay, maybe 7 and a half million).

So as we waited in the cold for what seemed like 2 days (it was more like an hour) for a trolley to take us out of town I wasn’t in much of a festive spirit. In fact, Kena was even trying to flag down a pickup truck to offer them money just for us to ride in the bed down to the visitor center. Needless to say we were cold and desperate.

All of the sudden we heard a small cry from a member of the family in front of us. This little 4-year-old girl was crying because she was cold, hungry and sleeping. The family was trying to keep her occupied but this little girl had obviously had enough (I knew how she felt).

It was at that moment that our needs weren’t important. We just wanted to get this small girl out of the cold. So several of those around us started trying to get the attention of the guy loading the trolleys. He finally looked our way and found room on the trolley for that family. And just as they were cramming on the trolley the father looked back with appreciation on his face and said “God Bless you”.

That was when it hit me. Its not about us, it’s not about our personal comfort, and its not even about our great testimony, its about the small things we can do for others. Because as we all watched that little girl get on the trolley and warm up, it warmed all of us up even though we were standing in the cold weather. You see, Christ didn’t leave Christians here for us to be comfortable, he left us here to show his love to those around us. So the next time you’re not as warm as you like, or you get a little tired from standing in line, look around and Christ may just be showing you an opportunity to share his love.



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