Everyday Gifts

It’s the unexpected that gets me all the time. The unexpected in the middle of the regular.

Stuffy-nosed girl. Weary with allergies. One late afternoon last week she’s abandoned the science fair project and opened jillions of beads in the family room floor. She’s making jewelry. I’m busy elsewhere and she brings them.

The kind of earrings I’ve always wanted. I’ve worn them every day since.

A late Thursday night. Boy I should be in bed. Eldest girl is sitting close by on the bathroom stool as I wash my face. We’re giggling about what, I don’t remember. The Noxema smell surrounds me. I wipe my face to find she’s written this on a tissue.

This means much. A gift. And it makes me smile, still sitting there on the counter the next morning.

A Friday as the timer for the pizza rolls beep – lunch ready in the oven, Lil’ Buddy alerts us again. He’s found a spider web in the treehouse. “Come see, Mama! Come see!”

Going down the treehouse ladder after photographing a spider in its web – to find this. I’d stepped right on it in my haste to reach the spider wrapping up its lunch.

And though it’s not all fun and games around here. And most afternoons are filled with character issues and many a morning tempers are lost. If I open my eyes, I see. I can see the gifts. Piles all around! In the regular. In the every day.

In the afternoon. At the end of the day. Near the cobweb.

Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it—because it does. Give yourselves to the gifts God gives you. 1 Corinthians 14:1

May Jesus himself and God our Father, who reached out in love and surprised you with gifts of unending help and confidence, put a fresh heart in you, invigorate your work, enliven your speech. 2 Thessalonians 2:15