By Kay Etheredge

I signed up recently for a gift exchange with strangers through a ministry I enjoy.  My daughter did it last year and found it delightful, so I did it along with her this year.  We joked and said what if we were paired with each other?  Stranger things have certainly happened.

There was a place to put a “wish list”.  That’s where I hit a wall.  What are my likes?   What is something I want?  We reach a point in life where the things we want can’t be put on a list unless it is a prayer list to our heavenly Father…the deeply personal concerns that wake us in the night and pull us out of bed and onto our knees are the things that can’t be bought and shipped through the mail…things like a grandchild who goes weekly to speech therapy and nobody has yet come up with a diagnosis for some of his behavior.  I have had the privilege of driving him every Thursday for months, and it is ironic because I used to guard Thursdays closely, calling them “my off day” and “my time”.  This has changed and I can’t think of a better way to spend Thursdays than with this precious one who celebrates the end of every session with an Icee from Circle K near his home.  The few times that he has said an unsolicited “I love you, Poopsie”, from the back seat have been better than any off day in the world.  I have recently been challenged by a beautiful book called Letters from the Mountain by Ben Palpant.  In this book he talks about Kairos time.  Kairos is the Greek word for time of opportunity… how all time belongs to God and none of it is ours.  I am grateful that God chose to give me Thursdays with my grandchild, a beautiful gift.

Our daughter encouraged me to be more abstract about what I like, and not to view it as a “list”.  This led to a deep conversation in the 15 minute drive from our house to Brother Bryan Mission about creativity not being the opposite of discipline and how very few of us can wake up in the morning asking “What do I feel like doing today?”

“These are our kind of people, Mom.  They’ll get you.  Don’t worry.”

 Last year my daughter got the name of someone on her gift exchange who has become a friend and visited her in Georgia.  Her experience was wonderful.  After beginning this piece and letting it ruminate until after Christmas, I can say that the person who I was matched with was someone who couldn’t be more opposite than me.  I got the name of a young man the age of my son- in -law who gave up caffeine but loves kombucha and is a “foodie’,  and for a few minutes I was tempted to grumble, but then I realized that God’s sovereignty covers a gift exchange as well, and I looked forward to things I could get for him. 

Christmas is over and the gifts on the exchange have been sent and received. I can say that my gift giver took my abstract list and delighted me with his/her creativity.  He/she truly did “get me”.   I am grateful that as believers we are constantly learning, and my new recognition of Kairos time and how all time is God’s is helping me to view each day differently.  And there are two believers in the Pacific- Northwest who God has brought me in contact with and this world is not nearly as large and impersonal as we might believe.

Someone told me this morning at Brother Bryan Mission about a discussion with two different cashiers in two different stores about his tattoos and through questions about them he was able to give his testimony and give the gift of encouragement to people who needed it.  This is a person who told me several years back that he was a little embarrassed over his tattoos, and it is mind -boggling to think that the areas where we might feel the weakest are the areas that God takes and uses to bless others as well as ourselves, and more importantly, to bring glory unto Himself.  What this man did years ago as perhaps a lapse in judgement has been turned into a gift that God is using as an ice breaker and conversation starter. 

There are people around BBM who have obvious mental deficits.  For several years I would see them on the sidewalk outside and whisper a prayer, “God, please don’t let this ever be ___” and I would insert the name of my grandchild.  Through the trips to speech therapy with him, I have observed the hard work of both the therapist and my grandchild.  I’ve witnessed victories, both small and great, and I’ve also witnessed fears and insecurities that the gifted therapist has helped him overcome.  Just this week as they played a game, he worked diligently to learn to spin the spinner.  I sat behind his chair and rooted for him.  When he figured it out, it was nothing short of a gift.  Then he became afraid that if he spun the spinner again he might lose the game.  The therapist patiently and kindly pushed him to take another turn.  He said, “I don’t want to lose”.  She said “but you might not lose”.  His small finger bravely spun the spinner and he actually won the game.  The winning of a Sneaky Squirrel game became a gift from our heavenly Father for a small boy, tenuous and tender. 

I no longer pray the selfish prayers I prayed for years.  I now realize that this sweet grandchild is an image bearer of God Most High, and so are the men and women who live on the streets nearby.  Just today a man came to the door and asked for lotion to soften his dry and chapped hands and face.  He left here with a handful of small lotion bottles, donated by people like you.  A gift for someone who needed it, and I am now able to look into the faces of the ones who live on the street and see them as beautiful and tender and brave and afraid, all at once.  I try to look into their eyes, ask their names, and see not only the face of my Icee drinking grandchild, but also the face of Jesus.

And Ben Palpant, in his Letters from the Mountain book, said so beautifully what I would say to my tattooed friend, my grandchild, and all of the sidewalk friends near BBM:

“Get up into the high mountain, my child.  You who bring good tidings to a broken world, lift up your voice.  Say to us what we long to hear, “Behold your God!”  Sing beautifully.  Sing bravely.  Unveil the heavens.”

Bear His image.  You are a beautiful gift.