Worth of a Gift
May
4
Written by:
Tuesday, May 04, 2010 1:29 PM
27My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. 30I and the Father are one."
John 10:27-30
As Mother's Day approaches I often enjoy thinking back to when my now adult children were little. I loved wondering what little gift they had crafted in Sunday School or in their classroom with excited classmates. I was never disappointed.
I still have a hand drawn portrait of myself given to me one year. My oldest son drew it. He put a caption under it that says "Mom, you are cool. You are fun. I love you." I love the picture because it was a reflection of how he perceived me at that age. In the picture I am wearing a long formal gown, but I am kicking a soccer ball and playing with him. Children are so wonderful because they really do forgive our shortcomings. I only wish I had been cool enough to wear a formal gown while playing soccer!
One of the other much prized gifts I often was blessed with was the traditional macaroni necklace. The children would take a piece of yarn and take dry pasta of various shapes and colors (sometimes even painting them before hand) and string them in a special design. Somehow children always know the right sequence and colors when they are fashioning these masterpieces. I have never seen a mother disappointed by a macaroni necklace that is made with love.
It's such a lovely and pure gift when the value of what is handed to you is not in the materials in which it is made, but rather the value that is intrinsically linked to the gift giver. How much more worth does a hand crafted painting have from your own child than a common print made by an artist?
As our postmodern culture continues to embrace materialism, we are losing the understanding of worth. We tend to look only at what monetary gain or power we may obtain from a given object instead of asking ourselves if the crafter sacrificed or poured himself into his creation to give it worth. In these days of mass produced plastic treasures, I know the answer.
On the way home from a trip a couple of months ago I had a friend who said she had wondered what God's reaction to abortion must be. I was taken back to an illustration I once heard that linked a child's art and worth to the rejection of the image and the image maker. I asked my friend to think fondly back on when her children had crafted a piece of art work for her and how precious that art was because of the crafter -- she accepted that art work proudly because she loved, dearly, the giver. Then I asked her what it would have felt like to her child if she had crumpled the image up and thrown it away with no regard, right in front of him.
She gasped. Huge tears came to her eyes as she began to see that the rejection of the image is, indeed, a rejection of the image giver. The image, in and of itself, does not have intrinsic worth, but its worth comes from the maker, the crafter, the most incredible artist! How much more must this horrific rejection be to the One in whose very image we are created? He gives life and we throw it away like common litter in this culture.
I was also challenged to think then about His beautiful and blameless Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus. God sent a Savior of perfection, and we tore him to pieces with our sin -- and He willingly came to die for us.
If an image has intrinsic worth because of the image giver, how much more infinite is the worth of the image that has had precious blood poured out for it? How much more is the image that was inanimate in Spirit, dead in sin, that is brought to life and breathed on with the Holy Spirit?
I am a precious gift to the Son, given by the Father. I am precious not by own worth or merit, but because my Lord is precious. I am pure not because of my own purity, but because He is pure. How vital is it in today's culture of throw away treasures, that I treasure my purity, my salvation and my very life that was bought by the blood of my Lord?
The image is reconciled to the Creator of all things because the Son performed the most amazing act of reconciliation known to all of man on the Cross. He gave us the greatest gift we could ever receive, and He did so while we were still sinners.
Copyright ©2010 Claire Shackelford