40 Days 40 Gifts Day 16

In my last blog I spoke about the gift of time. But I have to ask myself if giving time made mine disappear? What happened between Day 15 and today? Time seems to have vanished. So my apologies that there have been such delays in updating the blog. I intend to catch up today.

I must say that as I head towards the halfway mark of Lent I’m finding this gift thing harder and harder. Perhaps it’s partly because I put pressure on myself to give gifts that are a little out of the ordinary (i.e. not something I would normally do). That in part undermines the giving we do every day. I know that on Day 13 I spoke about the little gifts we give. And I stand by what I said - that those little gifts are really important each and every day because they keep us connected as human beings. But I can’t help berating myself for not pushing myself to give a little more. After all, Lent is supposed to be challenging, otherwise what growth do we achieve? I found myself filled with ideas of gifts at the beginning of the lent period, but since then those ideas have wittled down.

Perhaps that is because there is one gift I know I have to give this lent and something is holding me back from doing it. Remember on Day 1 I blogged about what inspired me to do this 40 Days and 40 Gifts thing in the first place? On that day, I was opened my wardrobe and saw it through the eyes of my domestic worker and I was shocked at how many clothes I have. So at some point this lent I have to sit down and clear out most of those clothes. Some of them I have sentimental attachments to. Some of them (I know all the ladies reading this can sympathise) I hope to fit into again one day. And some of them I never wear simply because I would love to have the confidence to wear them – they project an image of who I might be. But when I put them on I never feel comfortable, like myself. I think those might be the hardest to part with.

I think that’s perhaps why we are so uncomfortable with the verses in Matthew 6 about God providing for the flowers and the birds. We might even go so far as to trust that God will provide for us whatever we NEED. But letting go of the things we WANT, the things that demonstrate to the world “who we are”, well that’s quite another thing.

So today I embark on the spiritual spiritual distancing I need to do and then I will work towards the physical act of clearing out those clothes and giving them to people who need them far more than I do. And in the meantime I’m sticking to giving little things each day.

LESSON 16: We need to nourish who we are on the inside rather than expressing who we are through posessions

Wish me luck and watch this space…