Spiritual gifts: give Louise her gift

If you are a Christian, then you are gifted by the Holy Spirit to be a functioning part of the Body of Christ.  What is your attitude about your gift giving?

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When I was growing up there was a poor family with a lot of children that lived in a broken down house on the wrong side of the muddy Des Moines river.  They struggled in many ways.  The parents weren’t quite all there.

There was a daughter, Louise (not her real name), who was in my class. She was a shy girl, and pretty I think looking back on it, but unkempt.  If a boy in my class wanted to give one of his friend’s a hard time, he would say, “Louise is your girlfriend.”  We would all shudder at the thought.

(Whereas, I now cringe at the meanness of grade school boys and the heinousness of my part in it).

Our class drew names for Christmas and exchanged gifts.  The boys knew that if they drew a girl’s name, there would inevitably be some teasing, “Oh, what are you going to get ‘so and so’?  She’s your girlfriend.”

We drew names and it was a bad year for me.  I drew Louise’s name and immediately dreaded the teasing.  I remember the moment when I saw the name.  I stuffed the piece of paper in my coat pocket and thought, “all my friends are going to make fun of me for buying Louise a present.”  I told no one that I would be buying Louise a present.  I rode bus across the river and out into the cornfields in silence.

When I got home, my mom asked, “What’s wrong?”

I knew that my mom would sympathize with my plight.  What are mothers for?  I said to her, “Well, I drew Louise’s name, and there is no way I am going to buy her a present.”  I waited for my mom to provide words of comfort or to offer some solution as to how I could get out of the mess.

I never saw it coming.  It was like walking into an airplane propeller.  My mom lit into me with the moral outrage of one of the original “Sons of liberty.”  After expressing her disappointment and saying that she could only hope my grandmother never learned what I had said for she would surely be terribly disappointed, she told me how we would move forward:

You spoiled little jerk.  Do you think this is all about you?  Not only will you get Louise a present, but you will over-spend the limit that the school sets for the gift exchange, and you will give it to her with a genuine smile on your face.  Don’t you realize that this may be the only Christmas present she gets?

I look back on it and wonder how, even as a third grader, I could have missed it so badly about gift giving.  I thought the gift was all about me.  By third grade, I should have known better.  But, my selfishness blinded me to a great opportunity to give.

I gave her a nice present, that my mom picked out, and I did it with smile on my face.  There was no teasing.  But, all these years later, I’m ashamed of my initial response.

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I wonder how may times in the Body of Christ we approach our spiritual gifts like I approached our 3rd grade gift exchange.  If everything meets our expectations, and the context in which we are going to give our gift is just right, then we will give our gift.  But, otherwise, we might just pout and not be active in the Body of Christ.

We have gifts.  Let’s give them to our local churches.  It’s not all about us.  It’s about the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 12:6-8 !