I stopped by the church yesterday to pick something up, and someone had left me a gift. It’s not my birthday, nor it is it a holiday. The gift was a “just because” gift. They are the best ones. At the bottom of the tissue paper was a box of chocolates. I don’t know who it was from, and I probably never will, but it was wonderful surprise that lifted my spirits.
It got me thinking that the best gifts in life are not the ones that we open (although they can be amazing too), but the best gifts in life are the ones that open us. That anonymous box of chocolate given to me “just because” opened me. Other gifts that open me:
- Seeing the trilliums along the side of the trail
- The first sip of coffee in the morning
- The welcome I get from my dog even when I haven’t seen her in days
- Sitting on a patio and having a cold drink and a good conversation
- Hearing an old hymn played on an organ
- The smell of the morning
- Leaving church at the end of the late service on Christmas Eve
- Laughing so hard I can’t catch my breath
- Hanging my legs over a dock and looking across a lake
- Snapping the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle into place
- Putting down a good book, knowing I get to pick it up again the next day
- Making the putt that I never guessed could go in
- Remembering to bring my shopping bag into the grocery store
- Meeting someone new and feeling like I have known them forever
- Hearing the words, “I love you”
- The moment when the waiter appears carrying plates of food
- Seeing a older couple walking hand in hand
- The smell of smoke rising from a candle that has been blown out.
- Getting out to admire my car after a car wash
- Saying “good night” to someone at the end of the day
I believe we are given the gift of each day not because we have earned it, deserve it, or because we are expected to accomplish something in it. It doesn’t come with expectations, or explanations, it’s just there for us to do with as we wish. A gift.
And the tag reads, “Just because”.