Tullahoma, TN - Christmas has always been a season of meaning, though the meaning has shifted over the years. Once simple and love-filled, it has slowly grown into something more complicated—commercial, hurried, expensive, and often exhausting. Many of us feel that change without quite knowing when it began. But every now and then, something small and unexpected reminds us of what Christmas used to be, and what it still can be.

That reminder came to me in the form of a man named Jon Gray.

Fate, or something like it, placed him in front of me a few days ago. We struck up a conversation, and before long he shared a poem he had written called A Bow in Your Hair. It was tender, observant, and full of the kind of love that doesn’t fade with time. As he spoke, it became clear that his writing springs from a deep devotion to his wife—a devotion that has shaped their entire life together.

Long before this poem, early in their marriage, Jon wrote a song for her titled Beauty Lies in the Eyes of the Beholder. It was a simple expression of love, the kind of song a husband writes when he sees his wife not just with his eyes, but with his heart. He passed it around to a few Music City producers, and then life moved on. Years slipped by. Nothing happened.

And then one day, everything happened at once.

Jon received a call telling him that Ray Price—yes, the Ray Price—had come across his song. Price was battling pancreatic cancer at the time, and he wanted to record the song for his wife, Janie. He didn’t just like it. He loved it. He loved it so much that he chose it as the title track for what would become his final album.

The recording session was a “no holds barred” gathering of Nashville greatness. Bergen White produced it. Fred Foster lent his legendary touch. Vince Gill stepped in to sing harmony with Ray Price himself. They finished the track on October 14th. Two months later, on December 16, 2013, Ray Price passed away.

The lyrics—gentle, grateful, full of love—became his last musical message to the woman who had stood beside him for a lifetime. Janie Price later spoke about how deeply the song meant to Ray, and how he intentionally chose it, and how perfectly it expressed what he wanted her to hear.

For Jon Gray, a songwriter and wordsmith from Tennessee who wrote a love song for his own wife, to have that song chosen by a country legend at the end of his life is a rare and humbling honor. It is the kind of thing that doesn’t happen by accident.

Which brings me back to that moment in a nearby restaurant, when Jon and I sat across a table and he shared his poem with me. I don’t believe it was happenstance. I believe it was a Christmas gift—one meant to be passed along.

Just as Ray Price found Jon’s earlier song at exactly the moment he needed it, this encounter became a way for us to discover a thought that you might need this season. A reminder that love, expressed simply and sincerely, still has the power to cut through the noise of a commercialized Christmas. A reminder that the truest gifts are not bought, but spoken, written, sung, or shared.

And so, in the spirit of the season, I offer you this story and the recording I made that day. May it bring you back, even for a moment, to the Christmas you remember—and the Christmas your heart still longs for.

 And also, here is a link to the YouTube page that has Ray Price' recording of "Beauty Lies In The Eye of the Beholder" CLICK HERE