Randy Alcorn's Blog

This will be my first Christmas without Nanci since 1968, the year we met. It will also be her first Christmas in the direct presence of Jesus. Writing that just filled my eyes with tears of overwhelming joy. She is having Christmas with the One it’s named after, with the One who bought our way to Heaven, with the One who is both her best friend, and mine.

When the classic Dickens story A Christmas Carol begins, we meet Ebenezer Scrooge. This wealthy miser is caustic, complaining, horrendously greedy . . . and profoundly unhappy. (His life illustrates how the word miser is connected with miserable.)

In March, my beloved wife, Nanci, lost her four-year battle with colon cancer. All 54 years I’ve known her, Nanci loved Jesus. But from a front-row seat, I watched a wonderful—and supernatural—change in those last four years.

Human logic says the King of kings should have been born in a palace, surrounded by luxury. Instead, the only door open to the humble Savior was a dirty stable. Amazingly, and revealingly, this was all by God’s design. 

Training our children about money and possessions begins at birth (Proverbs 22:6). For better or worse, we are their tutors, every hour of every day. Albert Schweitzer put it this way: “There are only three ways to teach a child. The first is by example; the second is by example; the third is by example.”

One of our EPM staff was going through the junk folder for messages sent to my Facebook page, and came across this treasure of a message sent several months ago. I believe it was divinely orchestrated that this letter would remain in the junk folder until last Wednesday, December 7, so I could read it on what was a day of nostalgia for me as I was reflecting on the fact that it was exactly 54 years ago Nanci and I met.