GIFTS

                                               GIFTS

I woke up three days in a row, a few weeks ago to a beautiful blue sky, with not even a trace of a fluffy white cloud to ruin that beautiful scene.

The thought came into my mind. "That truly is a gift." Of course I did not order it and I did not have to pay for it. Never the less it was a beautiful gift and unexpected.

I have to admit, I did not think of it as a gift at first, but the thought kept running around in my head and I could not stop it. It was somewhat like when you get a line of a song in your head and it just keeps going around and around and cannot stop it.

The more I thought of the blue sky as being a gift, the more I realized we have a lot of gifts given to us that we just do not acknowledge. Sometimes we do not even realize we have RECEIVED a gift.  

I think things happen every day that are actually gifts, but we do not realize they are gifts or they really happened.

Sometimes just a memory is a gift. Sometimes just being with Family or Friends is a gift. Many times we do not acknowledge these gifts until sometime in the future, when they come sneaking into our memory bank.

Patience is surely a gift! I know it has taken me many years to accept this gift and I am sure I am not finished developing it yet.

Have you ever just felt really good and smiled and were in a happy mood to everyone you met. It is a special gift to be happy. At first people see you smiling and they want to know, "what is wrong?" Nothing is wrong--the person is just happy.

As I sit here and ponder a thought come to mind. Perhaps we could classify gifts into four categories. :All kids enjoy a gift when they are young, and usually it does not make much difference what it is. :The second group might be young adults, and it takes more thought and money for those. :Next might be older/young adults and if they get a gift they hope it is something useful. (And of course useful can be many different things to many different people. :And then there are the Ancient ones, the class I fit into. I do not care if I get a gift or not. I do however love to get a great big bear hug. A big hug has become a tradition in our family, just like Birthday gifts. However to get a hug you do not have to wait for a birthday or holiday to come along to get one.

I think we all realize we have many gifts each day. Some we recognize and some we do not, but just because we do not recognize them as gifts does not change the fact that they are.

When I first started thinking about a blog about gifts I thought I would write down a gift a day. However I did not persevere so that may have to wait for another blog on another day.

Trying to put some thoughts together for this blog has made me realize that one of the biggest gifts of all might be, knowing  that we have received a gift when we get one.

And of course, "we who are Christians" realize the Greatest Gift Of All is the one given by our Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave his life for us.

And then finally in James 1:17 we are told: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

W.R. Baldwin 1 Dec 2016