Christmas Countdown December 18 George Bailey Moments: Everyone Has Them

Anyone who has seen, or is even a vaguely familiar with, the film "It's a Wonderful Life," knows that George Bailey, Jimmy Stewart's character, has a moment of of crisis, a severe loss of faith. He thinks his life has been a failure, that he hasn't lived up to the goals he set for himself. George Bailey wanted to escape Bedford Falls, travel and see the world. Instead he winds up, for various reasons, staying in his hometown and fighting the good fight against that mean old Mr. Potter for the soul of the town. Because George Bailey stayed to tend the family business rather than eventually becoming a captain of industry like some of his school boy chums, he lacks the material wealth he would have liked for his family. George Bailey's crisis of faith is so severe he wants to jump from a bridge and end his life, thinking his family will be better off without him.

Many of us in real life exist in a world of doubt about our personal success. We struggle to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads, much less pay all the other bills we have. We struggle with work stress and family stress. Sometimes we even doubt our very usefulness on this earth. We wonder if we make a difference, if anybody would miss us if we were gone. Sometimes we even think our family and friends might have been a little better off had we not been born.

In the film, George Bailey gets a gift from an angel. George gets to see what the lives of his loved ones would have been like had he not been born. The child he saved when he didn't deliver a mistakenly poisonous prescription would not be saved without him. The brother he rescued from drowning in an icy pond, instead dies. The woman he married turns out to be a spinster, and his mother, whom he took care of after his father's death, instead makes a living renting rooms to strangers. And of course, one life touched, touches others. The brother George doesn't save isn't there years later to help save his fellow troops during World War II.

In real life, we don't have humorous, kind hearted, slightly bumbling angels to show us what life would be like if we weren't around. We have to do our own thinking and use our imaginations to visualize what the world would be like without us. And also, in real life, there may not be so much drama, with lives literally hanging in the balance.

But that's not to say the average person doesn't have some sort of George Bailey moment, quite possibly every day. A kind greeting and a smile to a co-worker can change their day for the better, and in turn they may end up making other peoples lives better that day, if only for a moment in some small way. We may volunteer our time or work for a helping organization, thereby giving people a meal for a day that they wouldn't have otherwise, or a warm place to sleep for the night they might not have normally, or a safe place to exist, temporarily removed from a violent reality.

What we do affects the people we see. What we don't see is that how we've treated others, how we may have helped another, is many times passed on by that person doing something good to or for someone else. The good we do in life grows exponentially through the deeds of those we've touched. Those are our George Bailey moments. Everyone has them. We just need to stop and realize that and count our blessings that we can help others, even with just a simple act of kindness. At Christmas it's good to be grateful for the gifts we've received, but it's also a good time to think about the gifts we've given, to think about our own George Bailey moments.