Speaking of gifts.....

I personally, have received two gifts in one week.

One by a beautiful young woman. She brought me a rose on her way to the movies with her husband. They lead very busy lives with three young children but they decided to make a night of it and go out for supper and then a movie. How often does that happen to young parents??? Not often! But in the middle of their evening out, they stopped at a store, picked out a beautiful red rose, complete with a card addressed to "the rose of Sharon blogger" with wishes to get well soon. Just another example of love shown within the Body of Christ. It made me so appreciative on many levels....that someone would actually think about me in the first place, but that it was a very deliberate choice to stop and do an act of kindness. I think that will stay with me a long, long time.....perhaps longer even!!! Things like that, I keep in my heart. I like to keep them there because it's those things that make ones heart a little more thankful, a little more softer, a bit more kind, instead of other unimportant, negative things....like how someone hurt me or how someone slighted me.....you know, that kind of stuff.

OK. that was one gift.

The other gift was not to me specifically.....and yet, it was. At least, I am taking it as that, well a part of the gift anyway.

Our church body sent Pastor Randall and wife Lauralea on a Sabbatical last year. We sent them to the Island of Iona in northern Scotland. We sent them to receive refreshment and a time away together not to mention some quality time with God. They went. They came back. It was good for them to do. But I think the event perhaps will have long-term effects on them. Every now and then the Pastor speaks of things he learned through that time away and Lauralea does as well. While they were there in a gift shop, she was glancing through a book with Celtic crosses. She found one that looked familiar and sure enough it was the same cross pattern she had made of clay for her husband for Christmas several months before. She didn't know when she made it, but it was the cross of Iona. Cool.

Anyway, she wanted to somehow say thank you to all of us, the congregation for their time away on Iona, for the love we had shown them in that act. She, in her pottery class, made a beautiful large clay Celtic cross, hand crafted it was........it had a burnished bronze look. The detail is extraordinary. She presented it to the congregation last Sunday, her way of saying, "thank you". Her way of telling each of us that she loves us.

What gifts. Two in one week.

God gives good gifts too.........eternal life, for one........