The 3 Best Gifts You Can Ever Receive
Photo by Dayne Topkin on Unsplash
“For it is in giving that we receive.”
―St. Francis of Assisi
Selfishly, we all love to receive gifts. There is something magical and fun about receiving a gift.
Have you ever struggled with selecting a gift for someone you love?
I definitely have.
Some people have a knack for choosing the best gifts (not me) — gifts that remain with us long after the giver gives and the receiver receives.
In an effort to help myself (and others) give and receive better gifts, I felt compelled to share three of the best gifts I have ever given or received.
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1. The Email Account
“The gift of time is often the greatest gift of all.”
Have you ever felt like the hardest gifts to pick are the ones where you know the other person giving you a gift is going to give you a much better gift?
That is my wife.
She is so thoughtful about gift giving.
I have learned a ton from her.
Well, one Valentine’s Day she gave me an incredible gift — and my gift to her was terrible. I thought it was good, but it wasn’t.
I felt so bad that on February 15, I tortured myself in order to make up for it.
And many hours of thinking and reflecting and just plain begging for the perfect idea, the idea popped into my head.
The gift was so good that I did not give it to her until February 14 of the following year.
She LOVED the gift. Her response excited me. She was impressed.
What was the gift?
I created an email account with both of our names in it. And then nearly every day for the next year I sent her an email telling her how much she meant to me.
On February 14 of the following year, I told her about the email account and gave her the password.
I told her that she could read all of the emails at once or she could read one at a time. But either way, she could live through an entire year with me over and over.
Feel free to steal that one.
Since my wife loved this gift of an email account idea, we decided to pass the gift to the next generation. All of our kids now have email accounts that they do not know about (please don’t tell them!). My wife and I regularly both send stories, pictures, and videos to each of their accounts. Some of the emails are fun stories about them as kids. Others are videos of memorable moments. But all of the emails are little moments that would never otherwise be captured.
The plan is to give each child their email accounts at some age (which we have not decided).
Instead of losing these amazing moments forever, our kids will have incredible memories saved in an electronic form.
“A wise lover values not so much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver.”
― Thomas à Kempis
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2. The Pin-Striped Suit
“Gracious acceptance is an art — an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving…. Accepting another person’s gift is allowing him to express his feelings for you.”
―Alexander McCall Smith
I was right in the middle of the phase that many people go through — where you want to become more responsible and look like a professional.
I wanted to look good when I performed on my job. But sometimes looking good is expensive.
So I asked my parents for a blue suit for Christmas. If only I had a blue suit, I would look professional, feel great, and people would love and trust me.
I remember being very specific about the type of suit that I asked for.
But on Christmas Eve, when my family opened gifts together, I was shocked.
I pulled a suit out of a bag, but it was pinstriped.
I did not ask for pinstripes.
What do you do in this situation? You asked for a specific gift and then you don’t receive exactly what you asked for.
Well, there are a few things that represent the right way to respond.
And I did none of those.
I made a snide remark that hinted that this was not what I wanted. I certainly had a look on my face that showed disappointment.
As I made the remark and the look on my face expressed my inner feelings, I saw the look on my parents’ faces change from anticipation and excitement to sadness.
I crushed my parents for a moment. And I realized it immediately.
I made a mistake.
I was ungrateful.
And I felt horrible.
Those brief moments taught me one of the most valuable lessons about gifts that I know:
There is a right way to receive gifts as well as to give them.
When you give a gift, you have invested your time, energy, money, and self into the gift. It is painful for someone to completely ignore your sacrifice and to express disdain or disappointment.
Here’s the right way to receive a gift:
Express thanks — do not express any feeling except gratitude.
No disappointment — even if disappointed.
Immediate honor and respect to the giver — including sincere praise
Look them in the eye, and
Smile.
We are certainly blessed to be able to give.
But do not steal someone else’s blessing by poorly receiving a gift.
The pin-striped suit is one of my favorite gifts because it taught me a lesson that I will remember for the rest of my life.
“Presents are made for the pleasure of who gives them, not the merits of who receives them.”
―Carlos Ruiz Zafón
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3. Adversity
“There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.”
‒ Richard Bach
Right after I graduated from law school, my classmates remarked that “Three years went by so fast — I can’t believe it.”
Every time I heard anything remotely similar to that statement, I laughed.
And then I immediately disagreed.
“No,” I said every time. “It did not go by fast. That was a loooooooooooooong time.”
Three years can fly by. Or take forever.
Let me explain.
In February of 2009, I worked as a media manager for a leadership development company. I had around an hour drive each way for work.
One day in February 2009, I arrived at home to see my wife waiting for me in our kitchen. She had obviously been waiting for some time. As soon as she saw me, she blurted out:
“We need to talk.”
My first thought was: dang. My wife is leaving me. This sucks.
But I was completely wrong.
She proceeded to tell me that I was not the same person that she knew five years ago. I used to be so happy and fun. But something changed.
“You need to go back to school.”
Her words shocked me.
She had devised a complete plan: I would go back to school: law school. She would work to support both of us while I studied. She had the budgets ready, with numbers, as she presented her case.
We ultimately took 30 days to think and pray. Then one month later, I started studying for the LSAT during my short lunch periods at work.
In June 2009, I took the LSAT. In September of that year, I was accepted into law school. And in January — 10 months after “the talk” — I was sitting in a law school classroom.
Here comes the fun…
During that first year of law school, my wife became pregnant. So she was working full-time, driving an hour each way to work, and then supporting our family of soon-to-be three by herself.
When our son was 4 months old, another driver struck her car.
My wife was seriously injured. Her wrist was shattered. On the day of the accident, the surgeon told me that the bones in her wrist were basically a big blob of “mush.”
After the surgery, the doctors and nurses gave me an update.
My wife would not be able to lift more than a few pounds with her wrist. For months.
My wife could not even lift up her baby. When she heard this news, it crushed her.
Remember:
I am in my second semester of law school.
I still need to study (a lot).
We have a four-month-old child.
My wife still needs to work to support our family.
And now, here’s the gift…
My wife and I had to immediately enter crisis management mode.
How do you even feed a baby when you can’t pick him up? Anytime my wife wanted to hold our son, someone had to pick him up and place him in her arms.
I won’t explain the full day, but here was the nighttime routine.
Our son would eat every 3–4 hours.
My wife needed to leave for work at 6 AM.
In order to get ready for work, she needed to feed max around 5:30 AM.
I usually studied at night until 1 or 2 in the morning, when my wife woke up to feed our son.
So I stayed up and studied until 1 AM, when my wife woke up.
Then, I would pick up our son from his crib and place him in my wife’s arms so she could feed him.
Then, I would get a little more studying in while she fed our son.
When the feeding was done, I picked up our son and put him back into his crib.
My wife and I would both go to sleep for a few hours.
At 4:30 AM, my wife woke me up and kicked me out of bed so that I could pick our son up and place him in her arms for another feeding.
We kept a pillow next to the crib so that I could lie down and sleep for 15 minutes while she fed our son (she gently ‒ or not so gently, I’m a deep sleeper ‒ kicked me to wake me up when I needed to pick up Max to switch sides).
When feeding time was done, she woke me up again — I then put our son back in the crib.
My wife then left for work, driving an hour each way.
I went back to sleep for 1–2 hours.
When I woke up, I got myself ready, got our son ready, and then dropped off Max at childcare.
I went to law school for the day.
And then repeat. Over and over and over.
There were many more challenges. My wife is incredible.
But what was the gift?
This adversity gave my wife and me an incredible gift.
We learned that we can rise to meet our problems.
We learned that adversity can bring out the best in both of us.
We learned the truth of one of my favorite quotes:
Adversity causes weak men to break, and strong men to break records.
We also learned that three years is a long time.
The greatest gifts can come from our hardest times.
Do not be ungrateful for the gift of adversity.
Embrace it.
It comes wrapped sometimes, with double layers and extra tape. It might not even look like a gift.
But it is still a gift.
. . .
Precious Gifts
Gifts are such amazing creatures. We learn so much by giving. And we can be transformed so much by receiving.
But most of all, we can be built up by embracing our gifts.
What gifts will you give, receive, or embrace today?
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Call To Action
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