Giving Gifts and Really Letting Them Go
Gifts. They are so fun to give, yet so hard to let go. You're probably thinking I'm a begrudging kind of giver, but I really love to make people happy by giving them what they want, need, ask for, what have you. However, sometimes it comes back to bite me that I didn't really release that gift. I mean have you ever gone over to someone's house and felt a little sad when you accidentally came across a gift you gave tossed aside in the garage or the closet or (gasp) regifted to someone else? It hurts, and even makes me a little bit angry.
Yesterday this smacked me right in the face. Joshua and I gave Rebecca her class ring on Monday night. We scrounged together the money to pay for it and paid it over time, but it was important to us and very special. Tuesday night she came home frantically looking around the house for her ring, apparently she might have left it on the sink at school !?! What? All my loving tendernesses and sentimentality seemed to have been left there on the grungy high school bathroom sink. What was she thinking to take her ring off at school and how could she have walked off and left it? Didn't she care about the work that went into my precious gift to her?
As I was rehashing all of that in my mind, the thought comes, how do I treat God's gifts to me? Does He hurt when I put them away, lose them, say they're not good enough or not what I wanted or needed? Just like Becca didn't mean to hurt me and daddy by losing her ring, I don't mean to hurt God, in fact, I don't even think about Him when I despise my gifts. Sheesh, heavy revvy right there. Solemnly, I surrendered. God, I'm sooooo sorry, I'll look harder, get them out of the junk drawer, stop hating what you have so graciously given to me.
What was really cool was that Josh was moved too. He had lost a physical gift and had looked for it at least three times in the same place. Well, how about he looked for it one last time in the same place and there it was as plain as day. We thought that was really cool. I mean, maybe it was hiding for him until he really appreciated it?
Anyway, for those of you that are concerned Rebecca went into school today and without much hope in her heart asked if anybody found her ring and turned it in. Guess what? It was in the bathroom and somebody actually turned it in to lost and found! That like never happens in high school...So moral of the story is...hold the gifts you've been given tightly, release those you give away.
Yesterday this smacked me right in the face. Joshua and I gave Rebecca her class ring on Monday night. We scrounged together the money to pay for it and paid it over time, but it was important to us and very special. Tuesday night she came home frantically looking around the house for her ring, apparently she might have left it on the sink at school !?! What? All my loving tendernesses and sentimentality seemed to have been left there on the grungy high school bathroom sink. What was she thinking to take her ring off at school and how could she have walked off and left it? Didn't she care about the work that went into my precious gift to her?
As I was rehashing all of that in my mind, the thought comes, how do I treat God's gifts to me? Does He hurt when I put them away, lose them, say they're not good enough or not what I wanted or needed? Just like Becca didn't mean to hurt me and daddy by losing her ring, I don't mean to hurt God, in fact, I don't even think about Him when I despise my gifts. Sheesh, heavy revvy right there. Solemnly, I surrendered. God, I'm sooooo sorry, I'll look harder, get them out of the junk drawer, stop hating what you have so graciously given to me.
What was really cool was that Josh was moved too. He had lost a physical gift and had looked for it at least three times in the same place. Well, how about he looked for it one last time in the same place and there it was as plain as day. We thought that was really cool. I mean, maybe it was hiding for him until he really appreciated it?
Anyway, for those of you that are concerned Rebecca went into school today and without much hope in her heart asked if anybody found her ring and turned it in. Guess what? It was in the bathroom and somebody actually turned it in to lost and found! That like never happens in high school...So moral of the story is...hold the gifts you've been given tightly, release those you give away.
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