When you get past the wrapping...

After a day that began at 6:00am and by 7:45, everyone was out of the house and off to the rink for an all-day Mini Mites cross-ice tournament...leaving the rink between games to get to church for program practice, a bite of lunch at Russ', back to the rink for two more games (in the middle of which our son took a 4 minute nap during a shift break), home for dinner and back to the rink for free family night out of seeing the Lumberjacks play Omaha -we walked in to the house at 9:35pm. I had just sat down at the table to check email when I heard a sound like the TV or music coming from where I thought was downstairs. "Crosby! Go tell your sister that I said PAJAMAS not TV!"

Just then, there was a knock on the door. "Todd, somebody just knocked on the door," I said.

"Well get it," he lovingly replied.

"I'm not going to answer the door at 10:00 at night! YOU answer it," I lovingly retorted.

He opened the door and with a laudable sigh, said, "Come here."

I walked to the door and saw two boxes with a bow sticking out of the top. Then that same sound I had checked off as Regan schmoozing a few minutes of Disney channel into her bedtime routine became clearer.

"LOOK!" said Todd, "No way."

There, in the middle of our street was a truck pulling a trailer lit up just like the Jingle Bell parade. Bodies stood in the trailer and that music, Christmas music, was blaring for all to hear. Shouts of joy and celebration came from the lighted trailer and there we stood...victim again to what until now I have not been able to articulate.

You see, regardless of my thankfulness to know a family such as this - to have my husband bound on all sides by men of such faithfulness - to be considered by anyone for any reason, I do not receive gifts well. Immediately I feel shame and guilt. I want to run and I want to hide. I want to avoid having to face the people who gave me something. My unworthiness is overwhelming and I shrink inside. My first instinct is to give it all back. My second is to question the motive and expected return of giving by those who offered me such a gift. I do not like feeling like this and the guilt of not receiving well adds to my feeling of unworthiness because I must be a very ungrateful person.

I chose this time to talk to my husband about how I felt - afterall, he was in tears and couldn't get over how good people in this world are.

His response is what catapulted me onto the path that I now find my destination.

"You might not think we are still in need, but obviously God does. Those guys didn't do anything because they wanted to, they did it because God wanted them to," he said.

The thing is, being given a gift we know we don't deserve and can't return in kind is a very difficult experience. It humbles us to such a place as to leave us with but one question:

Do we turn and run from the gift that defines our unworthiness but worthiness because the giver deemed it so? Or do we accept it, albeit with hesitation, because we are unworthy but more so because the giver deemed us worthy of receiving what we don't deserve?

Last night I was challenged to look very closely at my reception of a gift on my doorstep as a metaphor for my reception of the gift of Jesus Christ from my Father in Heaven. How long I have turned and run. How many years I have spent hiding and avoiding the shame and guilt the evil one places in our hearts when faced with a kind offering that humbles us to just say, "thank you." How long I have feared my "thank you" not being adequate or enough. But the one thing I've never been able to run from, hide from, avoid, or deny is that the gift is there - I can't give it back and it won't go away. I can ignore it for only short periods of time because it exists and it is not something that can or will disappear from knowledge. The gift is real and the test is how I choose to receive it.

After a full 24 hours of quiet uneasiness, contemplation, and silence of my soul to hear what the gift of last night was for - I know now:

When you get past all the wrapping, the gift is that it is a gift. Plain and simple. A gift meant to be received with a humble heart and thankfulness for all that I don't deserve but somehow am deemed worth giving to. Past the wrapping exists a peace, an invisible sparkling shiny light that fills my heart and tells me, "You have done nothing to deserve this gift, but I give it to you still."

To all the Knights atop the lit-up trailer last night - Thank you for revealing for me exactly what God intended me to discern and know. Your obedience has once again made His kingdom stronger and HE gets all the glory my heart can give. May you all receive the gift of Jesus Christ this season with a humble heart, knowing - you don't deserve it, but Our Father gave Him still! Amen.

Sara