Used Gifts
My brother Tom never grew up. Unfortunately, for all of the rest of us, he didn’t grow old either; he died of a heart attack at just age 48. But, even if the Lord had granted him more years here on earth, I am convinced that Tom would have retained his little boy nature. I've been thinking about Tom lately as his birthday is coming up soon.
I was the
youngest of seven and there was a big age gap between my older siblings and
me. I can recall one time when Tom was
home on leave from the Army that he and I played with his old Fort Apache set
for an entire morning. He formally gave
me the set that morning. Even though I
had already been playing with the set for years, I couldn’t have been more
excited that it was now my very own, and not just something that he had outgrown and left
behind.
Several
years later I was getting some Christmas decorations out of the attic for my
mother when I saw a big box that was opened.
It was a Rat Patrol army set with dozens of soldiers, tanks, and
jeeps. I was surprised when on Christmas
morning I opened a big present from Tom and it was the Rat Patrol set I had
seen in the attic. I was excited and
confused. I told Tom that I didn’t think
it was for me because I had seen it the week before in the attic and it was
opened. He laughed, “Well, I had to play
with it first to make sure it was going to be as fun for you as I thought it
would be!”
Several years later Tom relocated with his own family to Murphysboro, in the very southern tip of Illinois, and so we never saw him on Christmas Day again. But he always sent a big box of presents for us to open up. I remember the last gift he sent to my parents before my mother passed away. It was an ice cream maker. Packed in with all of the parts and the book of instructions was an ice cream bowl complete with dried up chocolate ice cream in the bottom of it and a dirty spoon. We laughed. Of course, Tom had to make sure that the ice cream that the contraption made would be delicious before he sent it!
To some
reading this no doubt, Tom sounds like he was a little quirky. But there is much to be said for someone
who never gave a gift that he wouldn’t have wanted for his own. Somehow if you knew that he had already seen the
magic in the gift, you knew that you too would find the magic in it.
God is a like my brother Tom. He doesn’t want something shiny and new from us. In fact, the more used it is, the better. He wants something that you have already seen and felt the magic in, because he has already seen and felt the magic in it. He is hoping that the gift you have brought him is your heart. Even though he has been living in it for years, he will be so excited to know that now you want him to have it for his very own, and it’s not just something that you have outgrown and left behind.
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
Photo by Anna Kolosyuk on Unsplash
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