Power of Choice

If You Bring Your Best Wine to the Wedding . . .

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. . . everyone will have a good time!

Brian Patrick Leatherman, the director of the Cherry Creek Chorale, said this, or something very like this, at our rehearsal this week, in the context of the necessity for each of us to bring the best that we can to the music.  I was so struck by the comment that I asked him for the source, and he said it was a sideways reference to the wedding at Cana.  I had to think about that for a bit, but I think I get his drift. You’ll remember, I’m sure, that the wine Jesus made was much better than anything that had been served up till then.   “Thou has saved the best till now,” the governor of the feast says.  I guess I always just figured that the wine was better because it was miraculous, but there’s no reason why it couldn’t have just been more of the same stuff they’d already been serving.  No one would have ever known.  Jesus did more than He had to, and so should we.  So I gained a whole new facet of meaning for a story I’ve been hearing since childhood.

By the way, my favorite part is a little phrase tucked in near the end:  “But the servants that drew the water knew.”  The ones eating and drinking at the feast had no idea that there had been a miracle performed, but those who were actually doing the work got to be in on it.  (Read the full story in the Gospel of John 2:1-11.)

It is more blessed to give . . .

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. . . so be willing to do some receiving!

[The original picture for this post was of yet another cross-stitch kit in my possession.] I’ve said that I have enough cross-stitching to last me till the nursing home, but my sister-in-law and I went to a needlework shop yesterday and I just fell in love with this one.  “Oh, I don’t need to get this,” I said, and left it on the rack.  But when I looked again, it was gone–and in my s-in-l’s hands.  “Let me get this for you,” she said.  “You spoil us rotten when we visit.  I’d love to give it to you.”  I hesitated.  The tendency is always to demur when someone wants to do something for you.  But then I remembered how pleased people are to give a gift.  “Okay.”  Her face lit up.  Am I pleased with this item?  Indeed I am.  But you know who was even more pleased?  She was.

Later I was asking Carol if it was okay for me to tell this story on my blog, and not only did she say that it was, she also told a similar story about herself.  She was 14 and possessed of very little self-esteem, as she puts it.  Her aunt wanted to buy her a Minnesota t-shirt with a funny slogan.  Carol kept refusing, until her aunt said, “A gift can please the giver as much as it does the receiver.”  How true!  Carol accepted the gift (and still has the t-shirt).  So I hope that yesterday as you opened your presents that you  didn’t utter the fatal words, “Oh, you shouldn’t have!” and instead just said “thank you.”  If you did say those words or have that attitude, resolve that you will STOP IT RIGHT NOW.  As the author of The Surrendered Wife says, your motto should be, “Receive, receive, receive.”

It’s Okay to Be an Introvert

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Bookcover of "Quiet"Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain, New York: Crown Publishers, 2012.

My mother used to say to me, “Don’t be self-conscious.” Other times she’d tell me not to be shy. This book tells me that she might as well have said, “Don’t have blue eyes” or “Don’t be good at spelling.” Introversion is an inherited trait.I got so tickled at Mimi Wilson, a Christian writer and speaker who was featured at a recent retreat I attended. She said she was such an extrovert that she’d have a hard time in Heaven if the mansions were all separated from each other; she was hoping they’d be more like apartments. But while I’ve become much more people-friendly since marrying Jim, I have to say that my idea and Mimi’s idea of Heaven don’t exactly coincide. While I do enjoy talking to people much more than I used to, at some point I have to have some alone time. My dear friend Cecelia said once that she drew energy from other people; for me, it’s the other way around in that people draw energy from me. I can take only so much togetherness!

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