One day when I was 6 or 7 years old, I found my mother taking a painting down from the wall of our house and preparing to wrap it in Christmas paper. We had three paintings in the house and that particular painting was my favorite. When I asked what she was doing, she explained that we needed a gift for our Aunt Myrtle and were going to give her the painting. “NO,” I said. “Don’t give her that one. That one is my favorite. Giver her either of the other paintings, but keep my favorite one!” “No,” my mother said. “That’s not how it works when you give a gift. It is not a gift if you give away things you don’t care about. When you give a gift, you give things that you like.” I thought my mother was crazy and stayed angry about her giving away my favorite painting all the way through the party where Aunt Myrtle opened her gift.
Almost 30 years later, I was helping lead a weekend retreat for a church group. Halfway through the weekend, on Saturday night, one of the participants started to run away. She packed her suitcase and headed for the parking lot where I intercepted her. I got her to stop and talked her into sitting down with me on a bench. She was not wearing a coat and it was cold, so I took off my coat and talked her into putting it on. She did not want to take my coat, but I pointed out that she was doing me a favor by sitting down to talk, so the least I could do was keep her warm in my coat while we sat. The reason I wanted her wearing my coat was that I figured she would not jump in her car and leave if she were wearing my coat; that wearing my coat would keep her seated long enough for me to talk her into staying.
We sat on that bench for more than an hour while she told me her life story. She felt that she was an awful person; that her children would be better off if she disappeared forever; and that she did not belong on the retreat with all the other participants. I stayed with her until she agreed to finish the retreat. When I walked her back to the door of her building, she tried to give me my coat back, but I would not take it. I was afraid she would change her mind when she got back to her room and I thought having my coat might keep her from running again when I was not there to stop her.
Let me tell you about that coat. I loved that coat. I tried it on standing in the middle of the store where I found it and a woman I did not know stopped and said, “You should buy that coat. It looks great on you!” It was bright red and I like bold colors. Honestly, that coat has been my favorite of all the coats I have ever had in my whole life.
Well, my runner friend had a powerful spiritual experience as the retreat continued on Sunday and she found her place in our community. When everyone was packing to leave and go home that afternoon, she came to give me my coat back, and I would not take it. I said, “You may begin to doubt yourself when you get home and you may be tempted to believe that what happened here this weekend was not real or was not important. I want you to have my coat with you when you get home to remind you that what happened here was real and that I believe in you.” So she took my coat home with her.
Two weeks later when we had a follow-up meeting for retreat participants in the city, she brought my coat with her to the meeting on a hanger and tried to give it to me, but I would not take it. I said, “I want you to keep this coat in your closet. Five years from now, I want you to be able to look in your closet and be reminded of how you turned a corner in your life during the retreat and I want you to remember that I believed in you.”
My mother was right. Giving away things you like is deeply satisfying. People can tell you about it and encourage you, but you have to start giving to really understand it. I hope you soon find yourself in a situation like the one I did, where you just take your coat off and give it away.
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