Indestructible

Cold Apples

Photo by Bgrace

So I was thinking through some things this morning and I just wanted to put them in writing and this seems like a good place.

There are a few opportunities we have in life to give special gifts: a gift that is the best we can give, a gift that costs us greatly, a gift that we know will be so incredibly important for the person we are giving it to, a gift laden with a piece of our soul. It is something which we do that changes us--we become the type of people who are capable of giving a gift of this magnitude.
This is something very beautiful. It is an outcome of our beauty, of our glory, and it makes us more beautiful and more glorious, and the gift itself is beautiful and glorious.
In the moment we give the gift, there is something that feels deeply right, and fitting, and satisfying in the deep knowing that what we have given is a good gift. And if we have given it unto the Lord, for Him, for His sake, out of obedience to Him, out of emulation of His giving, than we know we have pleased Him. That gift takes on eternal value. It becomes tangible in the Heavenly realm. It is one of the treasures laid up in Heaven for us. Something we will look at and say--this is something that I did during my stay on earth for which I will forever be joyful in.

It is where nothing can take it away, nothing can destroy it. It is an eternally existing gift.

I needed to be reminded of that today. I think when we most need to be reminded of that is when the gift we have given becomes covered in darkness. Perhaps the one who received it to doesn't value its importance. Maybe they've desecrated it. Maybe they've turned their back on the gift or even you.
Its easy to allow the feeling that all that you gave was for nothing. That so much has happened to cover over its beauty and glory that it can never be redeemed or retrieved. That even you can't find in yourself the ability to repair it.

Today I just had this picture in my mind of a heavenly treasure, though tarnished on earth, that sits in its full beauty. It hasn't lost its value one bit in the eyes of the One who really matters. So I'm not going to let it lose its value in mine.

Thank you God, for making me into the kind of person who can give that kind of gift. And help me to keep giving. And help us all--as parents, and friends, and spouses, and children--to be willing to gift gifts that become eternal treasures.
Amen