What Is Her.meneutics?

The Christianity Today women's blog provides news and analysis from the perspective of evangelical women. We cover news stories and books related to international justice and evangelism, pregnancy and sexual ethics, marriage, parenting, and celibacy, pop culture, health and body image, raising girls, and women in the church and parachurch.

Her.meneutics is edited by associate editor Katelyn Beaty and online editor Sarah Pulliam Bailey.

Free Newsletters

books we're reading



« Nancy Pearcey: How to Respond to Doubt | Main | The Top 10 Her.meneutics Posts of the Year »

December 22, 2010

The Best Ever Christmas Gift

Women in particular, it seems to me, have a hard time thinking of themselves as gifts.

Karen Swallow Prior, guest blogger

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is to re-read “In the Bleak Midwinter," a poem by Christina Rossetti (the sister of famous pre-Raphaelite painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti). The poem is so lovely that it has been set to various musical arrangements since Rossetti wrote it in the late 19th century. The most recent musical recording is by Annie Lennox (yes, that Annie Lennox), and as a fan of both Rossetti and Lennox, I must admit, I’m thrilled with the result.

present2.jpg

Rossetti’s poem has much to teach us about the overflowing nature of a loving God and the honor of worshiping him with the gifts that are most essential to our very being, to the selves God created us to be.

Yet we have a tendency — especially as women, I think — to recognize the gifts of others more readily than we recognize our own gifts. Likewise, it is also easier sometimes to value the gifts others are blessed with more than our own.

I remember one Christmas afternoon going to visit the home of a classmate and finding that her parents had spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on her presents (and that was many years ago). It was hard at age 13 not to be jealous of those gifts, even though just that morning, I’d been exceedingly excited about my own. I read somewhere once that “comparison is the thief of joy,” words that explain perfectly what happened that day and, perhaps, far too many other days in our lives.

Similarly, throughout life, not just on Christmas morning, we tend to compare our gifts. We compare our own performance in school with that of our siblings. We compare our successes at work with those of our colleagues. We compare our accomplishments and our cars and our homes and our lawns and our weight and our wrinkles and our children and grandchildren with those of our friends and neighbors.

Even within the church body, it is hard not to compare the gifts God has blessed us with to those he has given others. This tendency toward false comparison — again, a tendency that seems more prominent among women — is one aspect of the darkness and confusion of this fallen world, the image Rossetti’s poem opens with. Poor as we are on our own, we find ourselves, in our fallenness, in that very same midwinter bleakness, a world frosty, cold, and hard as iron.

Christina_Rossetti_2.jpg

Caught in this world of deadness, we have no gifts to give — that is, until heaven opens up and pours out upon us its gift of the Lord Jesus Christ.

A friend of mine, a Rossetti scholar, tells me that Rossetti, who was a high church Anglican, volunteered for many years at a Christian facility that helped prostitutes transition out of that trade into regular work and life. My friend suggests that Rossetti’s efforts in redeeming the lives of these “poor” women who had so little to give is reflected in this question in the poem:

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?

Yet, poor as we are, our God is of such an abundant nature, the poem says, that even “heaven cannot hold” him. So God cannot help but give out of himself, out of his overflowing nature. The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. But that is not all: out of his abundance, God gives to us the gifts that we are to give here and now.

Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 12 that the gifts distributed to those in the body are the gifts of God’s choosing, not ours. We are who God created us to be, and God wants us to give out of who we are, just as he gives to us out of himself. It’s as simple as these lines in the poem:

If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart.

The most appropriate gift to the Christ child — indeed, the risen Christ — is the gift of our selves, the gift of who we are in Christ, who God created us to be. The shepherd gives what he has; the wise man gives of himself; Mary’s gift is in fulfilling the role God chose for her.

What gifts has God given you to offer to the Christ?

Share |

Posted by Katelyn Beaty on December 22, 2010 10:55 AM

Comments

I love this reminder - and the connection to our own gifts during this season of giving.

Posted By: Heather Hammond | December 22, 2010 12:46 PM

I am a broke twenty-something working full-time with the added random side jobs so that I won't have to sell my future children to pay back my student loans and other bills I have for living and taking up space in this world. To afford the random birthday or wedding gift throughout the year is not a terrible hardship for me. To purchase a slew of gifts for those nearest and dearest to me at Christmas makes me want to live as a hermit in a remote section of the world without second thought.

My mom, the gracious woman that she is, helps whenever she is able to boost my bank account during hard financial times. We discussed her gift list as well as those in my immediate family. I told her what I could afford and she deposited money into my account for the others. When I protested that she didn't need to give me money to buy others' gifts, she exclaimed, "I do. Because I really want you to buy me the gift on my list!" The humorous sincerity in her statement persuaded me, humbly, to do just as she asked. I bought the gifts for my family and for her using the financial "gift" she provided me.

How silly we are many times to think that the giftings God has graciously given us are insufficient for us to use toward others or Him directly.

A beautiful reminder to give to Him our selves which is, after all, an extension of what He has already given to us. Thank you, Dr. Prior.

Posted By: Mallory | December 22, 2010 1:22 PM

Thank you for this. Beautiful, convicting, humbling.

Posted By: Kyra | December 22, 2010 3:26 PM

I loved this so much. This was a godsend to me today. It was exactly what I needed to hear.

My favorite version of that poem in song is by Sarah McLachlan. Just thought I'd share. ;) Thank you so much for sharing YOUR gift with us.

Posted By: Rianna | December 22, 2010 5:42 PM

I really appreciate how much you are aware of the complexities of issues. Neither the SAHD people nor their detractors see these at all. Both sides oversimplify matters. Defenders see life in "cardboard cutout" simplistic terms. On the other hand, it is all too easy to point to what is wrong--and overly simplistic--about an idea like that. It is far better to look at it critically and see the positive goals as well as the pitfalls of such a movement. You have done this remarkably well.

The disturbing thing that many of us see in SAHD is a what we percieve as to great a restriction on these womens' self realization and the fulfillment of their calling. You rightly recognize that this may not always be the case. (Although I will argue that a college setting really is a better place to study everything from theology and history to orchestral harp playing! Some things require us to interact with a variety of people and perspectives, and not just in books. On the other hand a life philosophy that frees young girls to study theology and harp playing if they wish, cannot be all bad!)

Let us remember that, even in these times, many women prefer the domestic life of home and family and don't want a career. That choice is as worthy of affirmation as any other.

I suspect that whether a SAHD type family restricts a young girls choices, or whether it sets her free to fulfill it depends more on the spiritual and emotional health of her parents than on the philosophy itself.

Posted By: Fred Smith | December 24, 2010 2:02 PM

“Comparison is the thief of joy,” ....this I can attest to firsthand...and I know I am not alone.

It has taken me a LONG time, and I still daily must choose the truths you wrote here--that I am created with such unique gifts, approved for His good works.

Even better, on the really really good days...I can actually believe (although never truly wrap my mind around such wonderful news) that He not only created, equipped and "approves" of me...but DELIGHTS and REJOICES over me...WITH SINGING~ (Zephaniah 3:17)

Thank you for this reminder...we go----as one body; forward; yet never losing sight of the strength, beauty and functionality of our separate limbs~

Posted By: Anonymous | December 25, 2010 1:46 PM

Post a comment:





Verification (needed to reduce spam):

tags

May 2012
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31