The Gift You Are

Proverbs 15:6            "The house of the righteous contains great treasure..." NIV

Many years ago, when I was living and giving at 90 Forest Cove Drive, I received a greeting card with this Scripture in it.

I had provided 'hospitality' to the person who gave me these words of appreciation.

When thinking of great treasure, what do you think of? I have expressed myself, to a few people, in the song 'the gift you are,' a little known song by a long ago famous artist...

as a way of saying... 

'Don't you know how important you are compared with 'stuff?' 

You can never be replaced by a 'thing.' Think of a list of things you, currently, have in your house. The list will be long, I'm sure. Now, imagine, that each of those 'things' was a gift from someone... even if you bought everything yourself...

Just pretend.

You know what comes to mind when I 'do this exercise' of gratitude?

I see the people who carried the gift into my house. So many times, I see my weary child coming in the door, at the end of a day, carrying food of some kind so I could prepare a meal for all the tired and weary 'worthies.' 

If you really want to bless someone, look them in the eyes, and say... 'You are worthy of this.'

Now I'm crying.

The reason I wrote my novel was... 

I was trying to write a current story to represent our walk of faith and to make the Bible come alive in our every day plodding to that eternal purpose of a life... the allegory, I thought, was brilliant because it was historical and yet, current. 

I wrote about my life experiences, with humour, yet challenging ideals and maybe even 'traditions,' because traditions really can get people... stuck.

So, as you ponder the gifts you have received, in life, ask this...

Was it the giver that I appreciated or the gift? We can, of course, appreciate both... truly, can we even have a gift without a giver?