"The Best Gifts I ever got"...from Reader's Digest

1. (I am?)Like so many Americans, I am spending too much tme shopping for presents to give my children, feeling(=and I feel) unsure that the gifts are things they would use or even want.
2. I need -we all need- to remind ourselves, during the countdown to Christmas, to reach back to our lessons in true giving.
3. On our living room mantel(adv. phrase), was(v.) a complete set of Shakespear's works(s.).
4. Daddy, a teacher-preacher who never raised his voice in the pulpit, tried to educate our congregation's mind, as well as touch its heart.
5. I was given strength from my mother's strength in the face of(:in a situation where there are many problems, difficulties, or dangers) tough challenges.
6. I remember(v.) once, after I became a civil-rights lawyer in Mississippi, (n. clause)I broght home to visit Mama a small girl who'd lost an eye.
7. When (I was=being?)confronted by the reality, though, I quavered. (=Though when confronted by the reality, I quavered.?)
8. (When my mother saw?) Seeing my hestitation, my mother gentlly pushed me aside and did it without missing a beat.
9. I am still ashamed of my resentment when (I was?) asked to share my room with a homeless child for a few days.
10. I no longer have or even remember most of the presents I found under the Chritmas tree as (I was=being?) a child.
11. But I carry with me and treasure the lessons in living I was given throught my childhood....... (=But I carry(v.) the lessons(o.) and treasure(v.) it(o.=the lessons) in living I was given.....?)
12. May these memories give me the strength to stop shopping, and instead to give a child a true gift(=instead of giving a child a true gift?)-time (which is?) spent with a caring adult, time (which is?) spent sharing some of the great lives and spirits ...