“GHOST of the Future!” [Scrooge] exclaimed, “I fear you more than any specter I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart.” That’s the spirit, Ebenezer. You are altering the future already. The old Scrooge would never have responded in this way.

The essence of the final visitation in this classic story by Charles Dickens is to show Ebenezer and us what his future would look like if he does nothing to alter his present course. It is a powerful tool for change, and given the fact that he is viewing only shadows of things to come, and will miraculously soon discover he still has Christmas day ahead of him (“I haven’t missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can.  Of course they can.”), he will set to work immediately to make sure that he will be remembered in a better way than was shown to him by the hooded spirit of Christmas Future.

Think of it. What about your current course: Are you happy with it? If you died today, how would you be remembered? Is there anything you’d like to change about that while you still can? I would venture to guess that there isn’t anyone who wouldn’t have some changes they would like to make if they could. (I have a mountain of them.) Well, we do and we can. We all have a second chance. Indeed, every day is a second chance. There’s still time.

Think of every day as a second chance to change the course of your life for the better. Throw open that window and find out from the fine lad below that it’s still Christmas Day – still time to buy that turkey for someone you know who can’t afford it; still time to make that donation you turned down earlier; still time to join in the festivities with someone you love; still time to dance.

Our daughter, Annie, alters the course of people’s lives every day she works as an Emergency Room doctor in a gang infested poor neighborhood in southern California, and she does it, not only by the right medical treatment for which we believe she has a divine inspiration for, but by the way she looks in her patients’ eyes and treats them with value and respect be it criminal or victim. She has a second chance today and she would like to use it to thank you too in this her Christmas greeting [see below]. And be sure and come back because Chandler has something to say, too.

Yes, and then there is Chandler who at 13 years old is the answer to our prayers in the past and our hope for the future with his own wish for you in the present [see below].

Finally, next week will be special for what we have planned for you. You won’t want to miss a single Catch. Christmas is coming; Christ is already here. Rejoice!

And don’t forget, YOU have a second chance today. Open that window. The Spirit has done it all in one night. Look at every moment as an opportunity to alter the course of your life for the better. The power of the Holy Spirit is in you. Let Him work through you.

Scrooge was better than his word.  He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father.  He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.  Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms.  His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
 
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.  May that be truly said of us, and all of us!  And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!