Gifts are Bridges

Here we go. Day two.

This year my little people are in school- so I have two hours, three days per week to write.

I’m approaching the blog a little differently this year.

I have never considered myself to be a blogger. I have considered myself to be a noticer and thinker and peace maker and serious writer (jeez) who happens to be practice her serious writing voice in blog format. And so it has seemed reasonable to me that at any moment, I might scootch on over from blogger to Nobel or Pulitzer Prize Winner. Which means that I often agonize over wording as if each essay is being published in a book. And there is something to be said for this sort of attention to detail. But it’s also tiring, and it gets in my way sometimes. It makes me nervous and stifles my voice. Perfectionism is just really, really bad, I think. It keeps us from doing what we need to do and being who we need to be.

So a few weeks ago, I thought . . . you know what? Maybe I AM a blogger. Maybe I’ll be a blogger forever. This format seems to be helping others more than a book might. Our communication is more real, more immediate, more raw, maybe even more genuine and helpful here than it would be if we spent a year on the editing floor before we reached each other. So…I have decided that I’m going to relax and be what I am. Which means that three mornings per week, I am going to sit down and write about what’s on my mind, no matter how random it is. And then after an hour and a half, I am going to hit publish, no matter how imperfect the essay is.

I love this plan. It’s relaxing.

Also, sometimes I actually won’t show up because any sort of long term commitment makes me shake and sweat. So if there’s no essay at all, don’t be mad. Like Bart Simpson says, I can’t promise to try…but I’ll try to try. That’s the best I can do.

Kay, here’s what I’m thinking about today: Gifts.

I think God gives us each a gift or two so that we have something special to offer to others. But sometimes we make the mistake of assuming that the things we’re good at are common to everyone. We don’t recognize that our gifts are unique and therefore worth offering. For example, I am a good writer and a good listener. Pretty darn good at both. Like, when my friends think of me, they think, “Glennon - she’s a good writer and a good listener.” But I never really KNEW these skills were unique 'till a few years ago.

Once I was in my dear friend Michelle’s kitchen, and we were talking about an upcoming party. I said: “You know, Michelle, parties just stress me out because everyone brings delicious fancy dishes to share and I don’t really even own any dishes to put a dish on even if I wanted to make a dish. Which I don’t, by the way. So sometimes I avoid gatherings just because I’m too annoyed about all the dish bringing. I mean, even stopping at the store for a bag of chips seems overwhelming to me. I don’t know why. Sometimes I think I need to add a sign to place underneath my “I CAN DO HARD THINGS” sign that says “BUT I CANNOT DO EASY THINGS.”

And Michelle said, “Yeah. Maybe you don’t bring amazing dishes. But you know what you do bring? You have a way of making me feel important when we talk. You really listen to me. That’s why I like having you at our parties. You are a great listener.”

And I thought….hmmmm.

Now, when people invite me to things and they ask what I’ll bring, I say: “I WILL BRING MY AMAZING LISTENING EARS.” If they love me, this will be fine with them. They’ll understand. If it is not fine with them, they will stop inviting me to things. Win/win.

Another one of my gifts is writing. This is the one I want to talk about today.

Here is one of my dearest, best friends on Earth, Dana.

Dana lost her daddy a couple of weeks ago. It was shocking and horrific and awful and it still is. Dana is a daddy’s girl through and through. And she honored her father and their relationship by writing and delivering the eulogy at his memorial service. Can you imagine? A week after she lost him, she stood up in front of hundreds of his friends and her entire family and spoke eloquently of his greatness and their loss. It was one of the most remarkable things I’ve ever seen. Certainly one of the bravest. Heroic, really.

A couple of nights before the memorial, Dana asked me to take a look at the eulogy she’d written and revise it for her. It’s a good thing she did, because after reading it several times with a very critical eye, I had to tell her that in my expert writing opinion, she should consider changing the “but” in the third paragraph to an “and.” True story. Dana didn’t really need me at all. But she thought of me because she knows I’m a writer. And since I’m a writer, I got invited into one of the most important moments in her family’s life. It was such an honor. I just can’t tell you what an honor it was, to read that love letter to her daddy. To read it first. To feel, at the memorial, like I was up there on the altar with her.

That got me thinking about all the other ways that writing has served as an invitation into my friend’s important moments.

My Christy invited me to help write a toast to her mother and father for her wedding day.

My Joey and her Brock invited me to help write their wedding vows to each other. Those were pretty damn good vows, if I do say so myself.

And I’ve written and delivered many, many toasts for people I love.

Writing, it turns out, has been my ticket into other’s lives.

And this got me thinking about my friend Kim, who is beautiful and has a gift for making other people beautiful, too. She has done the make-up and hair of all our friends on their wedding days. And so on Sister’s wedding day, we thought of Kim and invited her to help us get ready. Since Kim accepted our invitation and offered her gift to help us, she will always be in our memories of one of the most important days of my family’s life.

And my friend Gena - she has a gift for hostessing.

Gena doesn’t just use her beautiful home to hostess, she uses her whole heart. She throws opens her doors and invites people to step inside and celebrate life. Her gift is celebration, creating an atmosphere in her home and presence in which her friends feel loved and honored. She has hosted each of my last four birthday parties.

She hosts a huge Christmas party every year for all of us. She hosts everything. It doesn't stress her out, she loves it. It's her gift. Welcoming people. And because she offers it to me, Gena’s face will be front and center in our family’s celebration memories forever and ever. There are many, many bridges between us.

And then there’s Sister’s best friend, Allison. Allison is an artist, and her medium is the camera. She feels at home behind the camera, and God has given her the gift of noticing the important moments and capturing them. Like a writer, actually. And so her friends and family invite her into their important days to help them grab the magical parts and keep them forever. And so Allison becomes a part of those days, those memories, forever. She’s all tangled up in there. It's funny, Allison is quiet at events - she's more of an "ahh, there you are" person than a "HEY! Here I am!" person. But when you look at her pictures, you realize that she was actually there-er than anyone else. She soaked up every meaningful moment.

And so, anyway. I was just thinking that God must really want us to connect with each other. He must want us to become a part of each other’s lives and memories, and he must want our hearts to get all tangled up with other hearts. So He gives us each gifts to use as bridges into each other’s lives. We lay out our gift, and we walk right over it and straight into another heart.

What is your gift, your bridge towards other's hearts? What thing do you do that helps you get tangled up with other people? If you don't know, ask a friend. It's important to know, I think.

Love You.