The best thing about the unexpected Christmas gifts you got

Photo by erin walker on Unsplash

Painted onto my face, I have come to accept, is the question, “Go on, would you tell me about your day/life?” I don’t always feel up to pursuing conversations with others, especially at times when I’m out of role, but more often than not I trust myself and the other person to have the 15-minute chat that usually runs deep. When we chat, people open up, and we have encounters.

I never planned to be this kind of person. I planned to be a much different person. I have had to learn to accept who I am. It’s ironic that, in the process, God seems to work consistently with good effect without any effort from me. I just have to avail myself.

When I was young, I didn’t have the friendship support I seem to have now. I would often leave times with friends and say, “I’ll show ‘em!” I had all sorts of plans to prove my friends and associates wrong when they prejudged me.

I think it helped enormously as far as motivation was concerned. And to some extent I still use the “I’ll show ‘em” method to inspire results I might otherwise find hard to achieve.

I have found it rather enigmatic that though I’m a hard trier in life, the things I’m best at come without much effort. I didn’t need to work hard on being relational to the point that people open up without even thinking they’re even doing it.

It’s apt that at Christmas when we’re thinking most about the gifts we’ve given or have received, that I see the value in a gift I would not have initially sought. I do what I do because I connect. I’m a connecter, and yet I’m so abundantly happy in my own space without interruptions. I mean, as far as the spiritual gifts are concerned, I would not have coveted the pastoral care gift.

I would have coveted the gifts of achievement, of success, of self-actualisation. But, not to be.

Christmas reminds us that there are gifts we get that we don’t initially appreciate, but that mature upon our acceptability over time. We give gifts that we think will be perfect, and to our surprise, they aren’t received as we thought they’d be. Then we give and receive gifts that exceed our and others’ expectations.

Christmas is a day and time of surprises as far as the giving and receiving of gifts is concerned.

Even though we don’t always get what we want,
Christmas does promise good things,
and if we remain open to what might come,
we are at times serendipitously blessed.

And there’s no sense in not being open to what might come. If we prejudge our experience at Christmas, and I have done it so many times, we only disappoint the people who love us, and we lack gratitude for that which we may well later come to be thankful for.

The key task of growing up is taking what we might momentarily dislike and being patient with it, not prejudging it, having faith for what might come of it.

Another task of maturity is accepting and being thankful for the gifts of self that God has indeed given. The best of the gifts God gives is the ease with which we may execute them.