Gifts

 On Saturday Adam and I listened to a comedian on a podcast talk about giving others our offering.  His was giving people the opportunity to laugh.  He talked about the shift in himself when he decided to give people the opportunity to laugh rather than try to get laughs.

Saturday we went to The Importance of Being Earnest at the Hale Theater. Gifts galore.  Oscar Wilde's writing is a gift.  The talented actors had a gift to share.

Also on Saturday there was a stake women's meeting.  I didn't go but I watched the recording on Sunday.  (What a nice side benefit of the pandemic that is!)  It was also about gifts.  The main speaker was an artist.  She told her story and a little about her process and about the ways she was led to share her gift.

Our stake president spoke about one of his ancestors who was born a year after her pioneer parents had entered Utah.  She lived on a tiny farm and raised fourteen children and wrote hundreds of poems.  He shared some of them that he had found on Family Search.  They were delightful.

He said our gifts were meant to be shared, but he thought they were also meant for us.  They are sometimes for our own joy and delight and the joy and delight of those immediately around us.

Our gifts may never make us famous.  No one may every want to hear a podcast or a speech about how we've used our gifts.  Maybe no one will laugh and clap in a theater because of our talent and performance.  Still.  We have gifts.  

A little later on Saturday when I was putting a bandaid on my splitting skin (winter hands), I thought about one of my students who has even worse winter hands than I do.  He has full fledged eczema and uses the lotion I have on my desk but it doesn't seem to be helping that much.

I remembered how Neutrogena Norwegian formula helped Emma's hands when they were a little like that.  I immediately ordered some from Amazon.

We all have gifts to share.  Sometimes it's just remembering the kind of lotion that will help.