What was the most cherished gift you received this year? What were the most thoughtful gifts you What was the most cherished gift you received this year? What were the most thoughtful gifts you gave?
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I gave myself the gift of time this year. As I stated in a previous post, I have traditionally been a workhorse so the ability to take 5 weeks off this summer for myself was truly the greatest gift I was given. And that was time well spent. I feel the experience changed me or is changing me and when I look back I will see it as the first step in a new path, a changed direction in my life. I was given other gifts special gifts this year, things and time and words that touched me.
I have always seen myself as a very giving person; always willing to give time, money, goods, services, whatever is needed whenever it is needed. But this year I began to notice that my giving was not unconditional and that I secretly harbored a score card of when I did nice things for people and whether or not I was thanked or compensated in any other (non monetary) ways. So that is going to be part of my work in 2012; to give freely and whole-heartedly.
Lord, make me an channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Master, grant that I may never seek
so much to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love with all my soul.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life
~Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi
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