What a gift.

My wife, Ruth, gift wraps like no one else I know. It’s inspiring.

“You mean like wrapping stuff up?” you may be thinking, “I can do that. It’s not that hard …. as long as it isn’t soft or awkwardly shaped.”
Well if you are thinking that then you have clearly never received a gift from her.

Now, I’m a tidy wrapper. All my presents have clean sharp edges, all very presentable (I have seen some dreadful wrapping, in my time, as though the gift had simply been screwed up in a ball of colourful paper).

Ruth, however, puts me to shame. At Christmas I wrap a whole load of presents in an evening, but Ruth takes her time. Each one perfectly wrapped (otherwise it is re-done) and subtly different. You know that she cares about you even before you have any idea what the gift is. In fact you don’t care what it is because you know that so much care and love has gone into wrapping it.

I am always excited when I receive a gift from my wife, and that is before I even open it up to see what’s inside; they just look beautiful. Her gifts are works of art.
On my birthday, as soon as she is awake, Ruth is desperate to give me my present(s). I sit there in bed for a moment looking at these intricately wrapped objects, each one beautifully inspiring, trying to take in as much of the detail and care as I can. I feel rich just looking at them. Despite this she gets frustrated with my appreciative delay and demands that I open them. I oblige but feel slightly guilty having to destroy so much carefully constructed artwork.

The other day I posted some thoughts around Eph 4:29 “… Say only what helps, each word a gift.”

Thinking about this I have begun to realise that I ought to take as much care over the things that I say to each one of you. In fact I should take as much care as my wife does when wrapping a present. After all what I say, the words I use, is my gift to you.

For two years in a row my dad gave me a DIY manual. Two years on the trot! I didn’t open it to discover my heart missing a beat as it did when, as a younger lad, I discovered a Snow Speeder under the tree for me one Christmas. I may have even grumbled to myself ‘great present – not’. But since receiving these books I have been able to loads of stuff around the house :o) I can even help others out with their plumbing!

Then there was another Christmas, not too long ago, which I will never forget :o) My mum had been suggesting that my dad should really have a mobile phone (especially as he cycles everywhere). My dad hates mobiles and so this suggestion was not warmly welcomed. In fact he was so concerned that someone may take mum’s suggestion to heart, and buy him a mobile for Christmas, that he began to drop as many hints as he could to the contrary.
As Christmas day came round all he could do was hope that his family had picked up on his ‘subtle’ suggestions.
And we had :o) Although mum had got my father an electric razor she thought it would be amusing to put it in a mobile phone box before wrapping it up. She wasn’t wrong, it was hilarious! Dad openned his present and as soon as his eyes fell upon the picture of a mobile phone adorning the packaging his face just dropped. I only wish we had taken a picture of it for you guys to see.
He thought it was ‘amusing’ too, although only after he realised that it wasn’t a phone after all.


How will people receive the words you say today, your gift to them?
Will they be pleased? Excited? Challenged but in the end grateful? Or upset, annoyed or cut down?

What gift we give in every conversation is up to us.