Self-Giving

This'll be my Christmas post. The next couple of days will be full with family and more gifts to open per capita than all of Bangladesh.

The best gift I ever received was easily a gift I got from my brother one year for my birthday. We were both two years out of college. I was in Richmond, working with InterVarsity at Virginia Commonwealth University and things were more or less falling apart. Daniel was in seminary in Philadelphia.

Our relationship had been fairly good since high school and through college. But we were in a hard place at that time. I was insecure in my work (the chapter was falling apart, after all) and I wasn't sure that my brother (a.k.a. "the smart one") theologically agreed that para-church ministry was a legit thing. We had a couple snippy conversations. Things were a little tense.

So my b-day rolls around in late-February and I get a thick envelope in the mail from him. Enclosed is a pocket-sized calendar. He has marked off every-other-week as a "call from Daniel" week. There's a note enclosed. His birthday gift to me is that he is committing to call me every other week for the next year.

He sticks by his commitment. He calls me every-other-week for the next year. It is the turning point in our adult relationship. Nowadays, we talk just about every week. Daniel is far and away the person outside of Kelly that knows me the best and that I can talk to about anything. He gave me the gift of himself that year, it changed everything.

This self-giving is the heart of the Christmas story. An old Puritan prayer says something to the effect of in Christ Jesus God has given us so much that heaven can give no more. God gives us the gift of Himself. It is the deepest need of all of us, the place of redemption and hope and life for some, the place of stumbling and final and ultimate rejection for others. If the Christian story is true and God Himself has come to get us, then it can be nothing other than ultimately definitive for all of us.

Merry Christmas.