June 8 – “The Gift”

It was back to the Monday again.  All those wonderful little tasks that dot the Monday landscape for me every week and seem to always be there.  Still there.  Sermons and Bible studies and texts and phone calls and birthday cards and website updates and filing and consolidating (that would be all the sermon and Bible study notes from the previous week).  Just a generally busy day.

 

Did I ever mention what I got Chris for our anniversary?  Since there was no help from Google on recommended 46^th anniversary gifts, I had to be creative.  One part of it was easy.  Back on vacation at some fort, we also saw a lighthouse out on an island (Maybe Sand Island?).  It was one we didn’t expect to see, and it is inaccessible anyway.  But the little gift shop of the fort happened to have a wood-carved Christmas ornament with the lighthouse on it.  Now we kind of rushed out of the gift shop so we could spend as much time as possible adventuring through the fort, so Chris kind of by-passed that one.  Unknown to her, however, I manage to sneak back to the gift shop on the pretense of moving our car to a better parking space.  I had to keep the little object hidden from her for the rest of the vacation, but that was just a fun challenge.  Worked, too.  She was appropriately surprised. 

 

The second part of the gift was also hidden.  This one, however had been in plain sight for several days.  You know, we lost a lot of plants and even a tree because of the outrageous freeze that happened this past year.  I managed to find a few of those hibiscus plants that looked pretty good.  I got them home while she was at a doctor’s appointment and sat them down right next to some flower pots that Nathan and April left here when they were living with us (Well, when they were living with our house, anyway.  We weren’t here.  We were in Florida).  She looked right at them several times and never noticed that they were new.  Worked.  She was surprised.

 

So, my thoughts were … one thing to inspiring memories of our past and one thing to remind her that we are still living, er, I mean to remind her that my love for her is alive and active.

 

Psalms 126:5 says, “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.”

 

Father, thank you for gifts and for that one recipient who doesn’t seem to mind how weird and crazy they may be.  Amen.