A Gift

I’m a bit late getting this put together, as Christmas has now past; however, it is my hope that my words might invite the Spirit into your lives, and encourage each of us to give more of ourselves to those around us no matter the time of the year. The sweet Bishop of our ward (the pastor of the church congregation I attend) wrote a little article for our December newsletter. Part of it says, “Different than a present is a gift. A gift is something that bears much more value and worth than a present purchased online or at a store. A true gift may be part of ourselves - sharing gifts from our mind; gifts from our heart.” I had not much thought of the difference between the two - a present and a gift - before reading his words. It got me thinking. A present, at least in my mind, denotes something more worldly, more temporal. A gift, however, seems to be less tangible, more abstract. For instance, one could give a movie as a present or his time serving at a shelter as a gift. The more I think about it, I begin to see how presents can also be gifts; they have the ability to represent something more abstract. For instance, my husband, my son, and I gave little homemade presents to all the grandparents and great grandparents for Christmas. The present itself was not much by the world’s standards; however, it was for us a visual representation of the gifts of love and gratitude that we wanted to share with each of them. As Christmas has past and the new year is approaching, my mind is brought to one last point - gifts versus New Year’s Resolutions. Just this last week my husband said, “Oh, it never happened because it was a New Year’s Resolution.” We were talking with our family about something we thought we’d started doing one year as a resolution, yet it never reached fruition. How often do goals (presents, if you will) get left by the wayside because they lack the abstract, because they lack meaning? Every year we make goals, slap on them the name “New Year’s Resolutions,” and we think that that in and of itself will motivate us enough to actually follow through. In doing so, we’re giving ourselves presents instead of gifts. So how does one make a goal more than a present? For me, I must first come up with my why. One year I decided to give up sweets. I’d tried it multiple times before with little success; but, that year it was different. I was a missionary for my church, and each day I was inviting others to give up things that they loved in order to come closer to Christ; however, I’d never truly given up something that I'd loved. In an effort to better understand what others were experiencing in doing so, I chose to not eat sweets (something I absolutely love!). My why made my goal a gift, a gift of understanding. May we each contemplate what gifts we can give our God, our neighbors, and ourselves as a new beginning comes our way. Let us remember to give meaning to those things that we do.