Season of Giving and Thanksgiving

The fall is my favorite time of year and always has been. Even winter, cold and dark, is special to me. As the fall winds down we give thanks in a special holiday, and as the winter grows cold we are reminded of the Greatest Gift, and to give to others in return.

My life has had its economic ups and downs, and it has been speckled with loss at times. Mostly though it has been filled with joy and with promise, and even when lacking at times in comfort it has always been filled with hope. A few times though, I am certain I gave in to the idea of wanting to be taken care of, to let go and have others do for me. Which is fine in very small doses, but if we allow ourselves to remain 'in need' for too long, we are likely to remain in that mode and miss out on the greatest potential of our lives - giving, helping, caretaking. To those to whom much has been given, much is expected.

Many years ago in the cold, dark of winter, I found myself divorcing, raising small children on my own, and adjusting to reduced earnings. Though through the grace of God our relationship eventually opened up to being a family again, at the time things were so hostile between my former husband and myself that I had to take my children to the local police station for him to pick them up for his brief visits with them. We'd had a recent history of violence, and I felt very much on this particular winter's night, my birthday, like I was still a victim, still oppressed. Christmas had been very light, as all of my resources went into paying our mortage, paying for childcare, food and clothing, and there was not much left for luxuries. I knew times would get better eventually, knew I would eventually be earning enough to take care of all of us well, but the fall from our former position was stinging on a cold night, and the reality the children were returned to me in a police station without so much as a card for their mother's birthday (I never let them forget their dad's birthday or to be generous to him on holidays), filled me with self pity. As we drove slowly toward our modest home I saw a family walking up the street in the night - a father, mother and three small children. I recognized them. The oldest boy was in my daughter's class at school, the younger two were fraternal twins. The father worked at a service station two towns over and commuted there by bus - the mother was a little emotionally fragile and she walked the children to and from school every day. I knew the mother's fragility was in part due to prolonged loss of housing and the pressures of being marginalyl homeless. On this particular night from within the confines of my heated vehicle I realized they were all walking in temperatures in the low 30 degrees in light clothing. None of them had a jacket or coat on, though the twins were wearing doubled shirts. They were holding hands as they walked, from the bus stop to the place up the street where they were living temporarily until they could afford real housing again. I looked at them and my heart rose to my throat.

As I pulled into our driveway I turned to face my children in the back seat. We all had coats and jackets. My oldest had just received her older cousin's fabulous wool dress coat as a hand me down of great esteem, and the children also had thick ski jackets and these adorable holiday coats I'd bought two years before. I asked the girls if they thought it would be okay to go inside and get our other coats and jackets off the rack and give them to the family that was approaching slowly from down the street. I said they needed them more than we did and we had enough to keep us warm all winter. The children eagerly nodded their heads and we went inside quickly and pulled down their father's leather jacket that he'd never taken with him, my lined rain coat, a long wool children's coat and two ski jackets. We rushed outside and carefully crossed the street, approaching the family with warm greetings.

"It's awfully cold out tonight." I commented to the parents, who had their arms drawn about them, the mother holding one of the little twins under her left arm, the father snuggling the other twin under his arm. "We noticed you forgot your coats tonight and didn't want you to walk all the way home without something warm." We held out the jackets and coats for them.

"Oh no, we couldn't." The mother shook her head but smiled.

"Please, I insist. We're outgrowing these anyway, and if it was us out without our coats I'd hope someone would do the same. You don't want to get sick."

With that they nodded and the parents helped put the smaller coat and jackets on the children and then wrapped themselves up. They thanked us warmly and then continued on up the street to where they would turn to go to the 'guest house' where they were staying with other families. My eyes had welled with tears as they walked off and I took my children's hands and walked with them back across the street and into the warmth and light of our house. We hung up our jackets on the rack and as I sat down on the couch, pulling them next to me and onto my lap, my oldest daughter said she was sorry they didn't get me anything for my birthday. I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed her tight.

"This has been absolutely the best birthday ever. This is the best gift I've ever been given." Because it wasn't just my coat we'd given away, but theirs, and in the case of my older daughter I realized we'd given away her favorite coat. I understood God had given me this gift on this evening, through my children and their natural receptiveness to generosity. On the lonely, dark road of self-pity He had shined a light on people in greater need. Instead of seeing myself as someone in an undesirable situation, who had fallen from a former perch of comfort and reliability and familial love and trust - I understood I was a stronger, better person, someone more than capable of easing just a little bit of someone else's suffering or lack of comfort.

In one moment I went from being someone focused on what I didn't receive in that small moment of that single day, to someone abundantly aware of all the riches about me, all the joy, hope and promise right within the grasp of my own arms. All these many years and many ups and down later, I think of that New Year's Night more than ten years ago, just a few days after my childhood friend had arranged for my older daughter to receive a refurbished bicycle for Christmas, because I couldn't afford to buy her one. I remember thinking what a modest Christmas it had been, just two gifts for each of my children, homemade things for my extended family. First I had been down because I couldn't scrimp together a hundred dollars to buy my child a bicycle, then reassured when a more modest bicycle appeared. Then, wallowing in the mire of 'poor me', by New Year's night I looked outside myself at the world everyone else was experiencing and I saw how I had to be of assistance.

Later, as winter wore on, my oldest daughter confided in me that the reason she'd felt so guilty on the night of my birthday was because I had whispered to them what a great gift they'd given me as we came back across the street to our house, when all she could see was her favorite coat walking up the street on someone else's back. She said day after day she saw that coat, that fabulous coat I never would have been able to afford to get her in our current circumstances and was blessed to be given by my older sister when her daughter had outgrown it, and she was a little resentful. She wondered why the little girl whose family was soo poor they didn't even really have a place to live got to wear that marvelous coat when my daughter, whose parents should have been able to buy her things like that if they were working together better, had to wear a jacket purchased at Target. But, one day she just realized she and that other little girl were both warm, and that was what mattered. She understood sometimes we should give the very best of what we have to someone in need rather than coveting it for ourselves.

Which is why in this season of fall as I prepare to give thanks, I always do so in earnest. I have been and continue to be greatly blessed. I prepare a Thanksgiving feast, including a turkey, something I have never prepared for my own family, every year - a full feast with my best recipes, and I take it to a shelter, or to that 'guest house' where we used to live, and I give it to people I do not know but who are my brothers and sisters. And then, at Christmas and on throughout the year, I give some of the very best I have or I go out shopping for important items of need like durable, warm clothing, and I give it to others. Sometimes on Christmas afternoon, even now that she nears the end of high school and is looking forward to going off to college, my oldest will walk upstairs with her boxes and packages and she'll comment to me that I had fewer packages than anyone else. And I always smile, because it only takes her a moment to realize she can't see it - but the truth is, I have more. It is indeed in giving that we receive. It is my fervent hope that more and more of us will remember this and will share, bestow and give to others.