If I were to speak like my teenage daughters, I would call Michele one of my BFFs. We’ve been friends for about 10 years and in those years we have inspired, challenged, encouraged, and calmed each other.  I remember one particular time when I was sitting in a parking lot in Alberta, about to face a really difficult situation, and Michele was the person I called for fortification. She didn’t disappoint.  She’s always been in my corner and I will always be in hers. Here are her thoughts on giving and receiving.

Dear Heather;

Every time I open my blog page to write a new post or check my comments,  I see your “What are you giving away” button.

It always gives me pause.

“What,” I ask myself, “am I giving away?”

It’s not always an easy question to answer. See, I’m working in a new place, where the young women more often than not, have bruises on skin that deserved a caress. Where young men have become so numb to emotion that the only one they can identify is anger. Where fifty looks very, very old, and everybody knows what helping agency is handing out food and clothes and other necessities on what days. Where $50 won at Bingo is stolen on the way home.

And so all day I float atop a tide of painful stories and abuse and I wonder who the hell do I think I am that I could give something meaningful, hopeful, true, to people who have experienced far more of life than I will ever see or know.

For most of my adult life I’ve worked in helping agencies, working against hunger, poverty, sexual abuse. You know, society’s ills. Often people have commended me for my work. Actually said, “Oh wow. You must be a really good person.”

Ha.

It’s not that I think of myself as a particularly bad person, but I do know that the choices I’ve made concerning my work have not been made because of my inherent goodness. All I know is that accounting would bore me and I’m not cut out for construction.

So what am I giving away? And why?

It’s a good question and one that I feel more confused about than ever. Because I find, generally, that no matter what I give, what I get back is infinitely more satisfying than the gift I’ve brought. I find that when I’m able to make someone aware of their strength and giftedness, I’m blessed by seeing them come alive in those areas. Giving becomes a sort of self serving cycle.

And I’ve even been able to make a salary while doing it.

So how can I leave behind more of myself than I take from another? How can I offer my love and my strength and my joy and my peace so that there’s a balance that is fair and right in the world? So that I’m not taking more than my fair share?

Maybe it’s just in the trying. Giving without worrying about what I’m getting back. Not thinking that what goes around, must come around. Recognizing that in sharing my gifts, the gifts of others are magnified and that they too can find that it is indeed more blessed to give than receive.

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