Gratitude of Giving

Every year since we’ve had a child, I’ve sent out Christmas cards. This year it just may not happen. I knew in the fall when my friends were talking about their family photo shoots that I was already behind. I hadn’t scheduled a photography session, and even if I had,  there were no coordinated outfits on the horizon. The perfectionist part of me wants to send every loved one a beautiful card full of family pictures, but our most recent family picture  has my son looking the wrong direction, all you can see of me is my head, and all of our eyes look like black circles…it’s definitely not our best.  I wish we had the beautiful candid picture in front of the old barn or open fall field.  You know the one with coordinated {but not matching} outfits. But it just didn’t happen. For days I’ve been beating myself up about not having the perfect picture for this year’s Christmas card.  Now Christmas is just 2 days away, and there is no card.  None.

But it’s our tradition to send a Christmas card…

Tradition… a loaded word.

Full of sentiment and lots of expectation. It’s what keeps us running around town trying to find the perfect gift, making sugar cookies, hiding elves, and taking our kids to sit on a stranger’s lap. Tradition keeps us doing what we’ve always done. The familiarity is often what brings comfort and joy, but sometimes it simply brings busyness and guilt. What would happen if I only gave gifts that I wanted to give? Not because I made a list of people that I was supposed to get a gift for.  What would it be like if I just went shopping and found a unique frame that my mom would love, or socks that I know my Dad needed?  What would happen if instead of checking a list of Christmas to-do’s, I  simply woke up everyday and asked the Lord  what would you have me do today? 

Have we traded joy of what’s familiar for the demand of what is expected all for the sake of tradition? This is not to say that our traditions are bad or should even be ignored. However, sometimes even our traditions need grace. If we find ourselves this Christmas season merely operating out of obligation, then how is our heart capturing the awe of the Savior’s birth. God didn’t come to earth as a lowly human out of obligation, He came out of love because he wanted to. He was willing to sacrifice His God life for human life.

My son was misbehaving and as I corrected him I noticed he became fearful. When I asked why he was responding like this, he said he was afraid he was going to be put on the ‘naughty list’. My heart broke. I reassured him that nothing he did was going to change where his name was written, because his name was written in God’s book.  That is all that mattered. The gifts we receive have nothing to do with how “good” we are, but how “good” God is. And even then, the gifts can’t be wrapped under the tree. Somehow we just can’t seem to not be bound by the message that our goodness affects the goodness of our Christmas.

The end of a year is time to celebrate and a time to reflect. This year has been difficult for our family for a number of reasons, but mostly because my husband’s only sister, Charysse, is in Heaven after a 10 year battle with a brain tumor. It’s hard to put into words the depth and layers of heartache my family is experiencing in the aftermath. One thing I learned through the process is the beauty of gratitude in giving. I’ve grieved before and received sweet cards and dinners, but this was different. Our church did what I had expected, but then they surprised us. They surprised us in ways that floored me. A pumpkin with gift cards taped to every side of it…to help with dinner while Kyle was out of town. A tropical girl’s night because my 15th anniversary Hawaii trip was cancelled and my husband was on the other side of the country.

There were many other ways in which their gifts went above and beyond, but most of all it was the consistent and constant message that our community was in it with us.  I had never experienced that level of generosity. It wasn’t just because they saw a need that they wanted to meet, they gave generously because they loved us and they wanted to bless us. They found ways that blessed us..even when we couldn’t see or believe our need for them.

God could have provided a way for our salvation that merely met our needs, but instead He looked for a way that sent the message that He was in it with us. He wanted us to know that He understood what life on earth was really like–temptations, heartache, joy, suffering, all of it.  He looked for a way to show us His love for us, not because we earned it, and not because we expected it.  He knew we needed to believe He understood.

It’s often difficult to be generous, but it’s often more difficult to receive the gift of generosity. It’s in our uneasiness that we struggle with the receiving. Our hearts are thankful, but we don’t feel worthy of the gift.  Gratitude recognizes the grace of the gift.  It’s in the giving and receiving that we find the beauty of a gift.