I was recently blessed with the Christmas book, If He Had Not Come from David Nicholson. When I say blessed, I truly mean just that. It was such a delight to be able to read this book to my daughters. They are 11, 10, and 8. I had never heard of the book before reviewing it. I'm so glad we have this wonderful book now.
What is If He Had Not Come?
If He Had Not Come is a 40 page, wonderfully illustrated, hardback book. The story is about a young boy, Bobby, who discovers what life would be like is Jesus had never came to Earth. It was written by a gentleman named Nan F. Weeks and reintroduced to us by David Nicholson. Mr. Nicholson writes about hearing the story for the first time about 30 years ago in Sunday school class. He started a tradition of reading the story to his family every Christmas and wanted to share this wonderful story with all of us. I'm so thankful he did. I know that my daughters were captivated from the beginning.
In the beginning of the story Bobby is so excited to go to bed on Christmas eve, for he anticipated a wonderful Christmas morning. Instead, Bobby walked downstairs to a very different idea than what he expected. There was no sign of Christmas anywhere. He found a factory open and many other places open and he asked a few people about Christmas. People didn't even know what Christmas was. They were bothered by Bobby and Bobby was pretty confused. He couldn't even help a stranger because there were no hospitals, shelters, or Churches. At the end of story, Bobby is pleased to learn that it was all just a bad dream. The reality of what life would be like without Jesus was absolutely heartbreaking.
A favorite part of the book for our family was a section in the back titled, Interactive Topics for Families and Sunday School Teachers. In this section I was able to read different questions to my daughters. It was a ton of fun to listen to their answers and discuss different aspects of the story and life in general. I felt that the questions truly opened up wonderful conversation and I was able to hear my daughters thoughts on very, very important topics.
Another page was a titled, Going Deeper by Josh Mulvihill. This page was also very helpful in aiding our discussions. An example of one of the questions is - According to the Bible, why did Jesus come to Earth? The answer then gives bible verses to look up. We enjoyed grabbing our bibles and going over these verses as a family. My oldest daughter had fun highlighting them for future reference.
The book ends with a Gospel message and an idea to help celebrate Christmas. The idea, was to draw a Christmas tree and consider how the Christmas tree reminds us of eternal life in Jesus, My daughters had fun with this activity and I foresee us doing this activity again in the near future. After all, Christmas is right around the corner. I have to admit, in the past, I have been less than enthusiastic about getting our Christmas tree up. I think this year will be completely different. We can all put the tree up together and consider all the wonderful things as we place each piece together.
~Final Thought~
How much does If He Had Not Come cost?
You can currently purchase If He Had Not Come for only $18.95
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