gift

Farewell fair flower that for a space was lent...

Anne Bradstreet

This from In Memory of my dear grandchild, Elizabeth Bradstreet...


On coming across this line I was struck with the wisdom and the lack of what we have so come to know as entitlement that sweeps across our current collective psyche. In Bradstreet's time (17th Century) there was generally a sense that we did not own ourselves, no book would have been published as Our Bodies, Ourselves. Such a concept was foreign to the general mindset of the time and shown most succinctly and humbly by Miss Bradstreet. Yes, indeed we do not make ourselves. We do not manufacture such miracles. We do not set the specification of color hair, the pigments of eyes, the contour of cheekbones. We do not begin our heart's beating, we do not place in our DNA the destiny of what we see in the mirror. It is all a grand gift. As the Apostle James says, Every good and perfect gift is from above, from the Father of lights, in whom is neither variableness nor shadow of turning. (James 1:17) May we encourage such a mindset in ourselves as Miss Bradstreet has; that we may see ourselves underneath the Giving Father who lavishly, extravagantly gives us all things needed. May we be in the habit of unceasing thanksgiving.