Meditation: Other Gifts to Give
In addition to the gift of time, another great gift we can all give is friendship. A little girl said once, “I don’t have any gifts, I can’t sing, I can’t paint, and I know I can’t write poetry. I just don’t have any gifts!”
“Yes, you do-it shines out all over you,” her mother said quickly. “You have one of the best gifts of all-the gift of friendship. You just seem to know how to be friends with people.”
Instead of asking: how many friends do I have? the Christian asks: to how many people can I be a friend? People who need people are the luckiest people in the world. I know how much I need people. Let me find the people who need me-my friendship, my love, let me express this friendship with a thoughtful telephone call or card, or visit, to let them know I care.
The greatest gifts are free. The gift of encouragement, the gift of saying, “I love you” to someone whose love we have taken for granted, the gift of forgiveness, the gift of saying, “I’m sorry” to someone we may have hurt, the gift of understanding, the gift of really listening when another speaks to try to get his or her point of view, to try to understand how the other person real1y feels. We may not have what the psychoanalyst calls “the third ear,” but two ears will help if they are really open. People who break down are those who don’t have the opportunity to “talk through” their conflicts and stresses because they are unable to find a “listening ear,” because the people with whom they talk are not really hearing what they are saying. To be sensitive to what others are really saying, to give one’s whole and serious attention to another person, is a precious gift: the gift of love!
Meditation: Other Gifts to Give
Another great gift to give is praise. Marriage counselors tell us that the single most important cause of divorce is when one spouse seriously damages the other’s self-esteem or sense of personal significance. Partners in marriage will endure a variety of hardships and indignities as long as they are held in some degree of esteem by their mates. All of us need praise. When we don’t get it, life becomes unbearable. When we do get it, we tend to live up to it. The desire to be praised and appreciated is perhaps one of the deepest needs we have. Few gifts we can ever give are greater than praise.
Do I give this gift often enough to my spouse, to my children? The Lord Jesus tells us that whatever the gift we give, we should give it to the person with the greatest need, expecting nothing in return. As He said, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (St. Luke 14:12-24).
Meditation: The Great Gift!
In Nashville, Tennessee, in the home of an Army chaplain, on the first Christmas Eve after World War II, the telephone rang. His wife answered. She was thrilled to hear the voice of her husband who after many months overseas had just returned to American shores. One can imagine her joy when she learned he would be home for Christmas. He would be able to get home sometime during the night. They decided to keep his home-coming a secret from the children that he might surprise them on Christmas morning. The next morning. Christmas Day, the children gathered around the tree to open their presents. Suddenly the white sheet on which the presents had been placed stirred, and up from among the packages arose their father. It is easy to imagine the joy of that home when the little ones who had expected only presents found their father himself.
God has provided the greatest Gift of all in Jesus. There is not a person anywhere on this earth who does not need Him: His forgiveness, His love, His peace, His guidance. Only He can fill the emptiness in man’s soul. As Jesus told the Samaritan woman. “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring or water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13.14). The little gifts the world offers are nothing compared to the Great Gift God offers us in Christ.
How prepared are you to receive this Great Gift this Christmas?
~ Presbytera Emily Harakas & Fr. Anthony Coniaris, DAILY MEDITATIONS and Prayers for the CHRISTMAS ADVENT Fast and Epiphany: Living the Days of Advent and Epiphany according to the Orthodox Church Calendar
