Gifts For All Year

Well, another holiday season has come and gone, hopefully finding your sanity still in tact. To maintain your sanity in this old world has always meant finding a way to vent the pressures that build up inside. Professional advisers used to say simply to go out in the back yard and scream at the top of your lungs to release pent-up stress. Nowadays you might get locked up for doing that. I do believe though that it beats the alternatives of physically abusing someone, which so many are inclined to do, or self abuse, like drowning your sorrows in alcohol or drugs. It took a long time before I discovered a better way, a way I found to be much safer for myself, and others. Just give a little. Yes, it’s as simple as that. And generally all I have to give is about thirty seconds of my time being silent and patient. Hey, try this the next time some idiot really torques your jaw out on the highway. Simply smile, give a cheerful wave to the other driver and say out loud, oh go ahead he can’t hear you, say out loud, “Yeh, Jesus loves you too” and let it go. Stress gone, I guarantee. A little personal comic relief is a pretty safe vent nowadays.
Can you remember Glen Campbell? Ooooo, sort of sends chills up your back, huh? Well, in his oldie but goodie, “Try A Little Kindness”, the refrain of the song goes like this. “You got to try a little kindness, Yes, show a little kindness, Just shine your light for everyone to see. And if you try a little kindness, then you’ll overlook the blindness, Of the narrow-minded people on the narrow-minded streets.”
A smile costs nothing, but gives much. I enriches those who receive, without making poorer those who give. It takes only a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. No one is so poor but that he can be made rich by it. A smile creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in business, and is the countersign of friendship. It brings rest to the weary, cheer to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and is Nature’s best antidote for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is of no value to anyone until it is given away. Some people are too tired to give you a smile. Give them one of yours, as none needs a smile so much as he who has no more to give.
[Matthew 22: 32-40] Don’t you think you could give all year around as lovingly as you do during the holiday season? Gifts don’t have to be expensive to hold great value. Give The Gift Of Praise: Appropriate mention of superior qualities or of jobs and deeds well done. Give The Gift Of Consideration: Putting yourself in the other man’s shoes, providing genuine understanding of his side of the case. Give The Gift Of Concession: Humbly saying, at just the right point, “I am sorry, you are right, and I am wrong”. Give The Gift Of Gratitude: Never forgetting to say, “I thank you” and never failing to mean it. Give The Gift Of Attention: When others speak, listen attentively. If directed to you personally, meet his eyes squarely. Give The Gift Of Inspiration: Plant seeds of courage and action in another person’s heart. Give The Gift Of Personal Presence: In sickness, in trouble, or in great joy, there’s nothing quite equal to your personal expression of sympathy or congratulations. Resolve to give these gifts each day. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at what you’ll receive in return. God never meant for us to live with revengeful stress. His wants us to love one another, even the unlovable.