Care packages

"The manner of giving is worth more than the gift."  Pierre Corneille

It's no secret one of the top ten things that bring me joy is making a care package for someone.  There was a time in my life when I had plenty of resources and spread this kind of gift liberally for special occasions like birthdays, for people heading into surgery or coming out of crisis or just because. I still try to send at least one a month.  They always come together through picking up goodies here and there as I find them on sale and adding them to my gift drawer.  God will put someone on my heart or the calendar will bring a reminder of a date to be remembered, and I begin to piece my package together.  I then find a few last things that are very specific to the recipient.  I often thought how I'd love to receive this kind of package from someone else someday.

God has a interesting way of answering these kind of "wishes".  Over the long years of suffering and surgeries I have received many beautiful expressions of love returned to me in exactly my own language.  My heart and home are full of remembrances of friends and family encouraging my heart through tangible gifts.

Friday I was so stretched physically and emotionally fragile.  At least once an hour I would think I wanted to call and cancel my upcoming surgery.  I went shopping to find sidewalk chalk for Danica's birthday party and then went to do car rider line.  This is something I have been trying to do regularly to help my mom who had been bringing the girl's home and then returning to school for hours more of meetings and work and also to bring some normalcy to my girl's lives.  It is hard on me.  The traffic in Hartville is getting worse and worse.  Turning my neck to the right and left at stop signs multiple times leaves me so sick and weak by the time I'm home.  Friday was particularly hard.  We pulled up to the house to find two large boxes on my front porch from fellow zebra friends on opposite sides of the United States.  The packages were completely different and both perfect.  The reminders to "Never give up" and to "Fight on" gave me the push I needed to finish the day strong and lean in to God as He makes this way for another surgery.

I'm blessed.  I often tell my girls you get exactly what you give in life.  It may often be returned to you in a different way than you gave and in a completely other time of life, but it will come back. One of my favorite verses about giving and receiving is Luke 6:38.

"Give, and it will be given to you.  a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.  For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

Oh how true this has been for us.  This is why we still give even when it seems we shouldn't.  This is why receiving love in the right spirit is just as important as giving the gift.  Care in a package can be the hands of God, the saving grace, the things that take on heart and hope in a journey like ours.