Gift Giving

 Christmas is in the air and one important part of Christmas is gift giving. I admit that I'm one of the worst gift-givers around. I have a very difficult time coming up with great, meaningful gift ideas for people. I have always struggled with it. Because of this, coming up with Christmas gifts for people every year can be painful for me. I should, but don't, enjoy Christmas shopping. Admittedly, some gifts have been well received, but some have fallen flat.

I'm going to share a story about one of my gifts that fell flat.  When Alan lived in San Francisco during his first trimester of Dental School just prior to our wedding, I sent him a gift that I thought would be well received, but it really wasn't. The back story is that as a child, our family used to go pine nut hunting in the fall. We would camp out on a Friday night up in the mountains and then look for pine cones filled with delicious pine nuts on Saturday morning. My dad used to roast the nuts with a little salt added and they tasted so delicious. They are delicious raw, also, but I prefer them roasted. 

One day I saw some roasted pine nuts at the store and since I love them so much, I thought that giving some to Alan as a gift would be so perfect. It wasn't for Christmas or for any other reason other than I just wanted to gift him some, so I mailed them to his address in San Francisco.

I discovered that just because I value something doesn't mean others will value it as well. After receiving my gift, Alan couldn't for the life of him figure out why I would give him a gift of roasted pine nuts. I tried to explain it over the phone, but I don't think he ever really understood what these nuts mean to me. I thought he would love them just as I did, but that wasn't the case. That was one of my biggest gift failures, but there have been others.

I am of the opinion that God gives us gifts that maybe we don't willingly appreciate or value as much as He does. He gave us the ten commandments, but not everyone values them or abides by them. He gave us, through Jesus Christ, the ability to repent of our sins, but sometimes we don't take advantage of that gift and keep living our lives like little sins don't matter. God gave us our wonderful bodies, but we don't always take care of them as well as we could - like not exercising enough, unhealthy eating, or not getting enough sleep. I'm not perfect in these things. Most people aren't. 

God gives us gifts because He loves us. I hope that I can always appreciate and value every gift God has blessed me with.