Thoughts about giving and gifts

I think I've mentioned before how much I love quotes. Some folks just have a way with words, don't they? Like Maya Angelou, who said, "I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver." I had the opportunity to test out this concept recently, and found it to be true. Our seven-year-old daughter had been having some concerning symptoms, and her doctor sent us to a specialist to have her checked out. It's a funny thing about human nature that given half a chance, we tend to think the worst. Driving into the pediatric cancer center for our appointment, I was thinking, "how many times will we come here? Is this the first heart-wrenching visit of many?" Thank God, it wasn't. The oncologist determined our daughter's bone marrow is recovering from a nasty virus, and she doesn't have leukemia. Before he told us that, though, and we all sighed a huge sigh of relief and thanksgiving, we left some bracelets. Giving, it seems, actually takes us out of our personal sphere, whether it's full of joy or sorrow, and makes us think about the inner life of someone else - will this make them happy? will they smile when they find this? if a boy finds one of these bracelets, will he give it to his mom, or his girlfriend? will they realize that they've been touched by someone they've never met? will we bring joy into someone's life today? So, even in the midst of our anxiety and fear, we found a way to take ourselves "outside ourselves", and in doing that we not only spread some happiness into someone else's life, but we made ourselves smile, too.

It's not really about bracelets, you know. It's about the unexpected delight of receiving a gift you neither anticipated nor earned. You're getting something that someone put their time and caring into, even though that person has never met you. It's about discovering that someone who owes you nothing, someone you haven't met or tried hard to impress, someone who has nothing to gain by giving to you - cares.