Gifts....and more

Have you received a gift that was particularly special? Maybe it was something you had been wanting for a long time, or perhaps something you had been needing and for which you had been hoping, or maybe even something you did not expect but once you had it, it seemed the perfect gift. These sorts of gifts go beyond themselves and impact more areas of your life than what might seem at first blush their purpose.

Perhaps it was someone offering you a job out of the blue that set you back on your feet.

Maybe it was someone who came along beside you during one of your darkest moments and lifted you out of that space, empowering you to move forward.

Or it could have been a note, written on a small card that arrived in the mail telling you that you hadn't been forgotten in the morass of life.

None of those appear to the greater world as anything special. None will fuel an economy, end a war, or cure a disease. But to you they might have meant more than the world itself. Because of them you are here today - not just breathing but valuable. Those are special gifts are really the ones that "keep on giving" over years and even lifetimes.

Have you ever thought of yourself as such a gift; as something larger and more expansive than just you as a person with green eyes and blonde hair? Not only as an object crafted by God that makes people laugh, or crochets baby blankets, or provides an ear from time to time. Not only as another person trying to get through life who may seem to have it more together than some others now and then. Rather, as something more expansive - a presence, a life-giving force, a wave moving through space and time impacting and enlivening those with whom you come in contact.

Can you see yourself innately "humming" as a life-giving force that expands outside of your immediate reach? A force that causes ripples across the world by impacting and causing others to vibrate.

Do you see yourself moving through life that way? What would happen to the people you meet if you did? How would your interaction with other people, with other things change? Imagine yourself as such a life-giving presence and force for others over the next week or so. Let us know what happens.