I have a great pair of Cowboy boots in my closet that I have had for about 30 years. They aren’t worn out. Not just because they’re good quality boots, but because they haven’t been used much. I usually give things away that I don’t use anymore, but these I keep. They have special meaning to me, because they were given to me by a close relative. They also are a consistent reminder of a lesson they have reinforced to me many times since I first got them.
When my wife and I were first married, we didn’t wait long to start a family. Once we got started, we didn’t quit—or slow down—the process of child bearing for a long time. (Our youngest child came 22 years after our first!) Like a lot of folks in those early years of marriage—and for quite a while after starting our family—we were poor as our church mice. We threw newspapers together while attending college to pay bills. Melanie later worked in a dress shop while I became the night manager at a fast food chain to get us through our last couple of years. We learned to get by without much.
The boots came a couple years later. We were still poor and just getting started in life while trying to feed and raise the first 3 of our kids. One day I was visiting my well-meaning and generous family member, mentioned above. While we were chatting, he asked me if I had any cowboy boots, to which I replied that I didn’t. He told me they are the most comfortable shoes made. He wore them all the time, even to work, where he was frequently required to dress in a suit and tie. A few minutes later he summoned me to the garage, and told me to jump in the car with him while no one else noticed.
I thought it was nice to go on a little drive, until we pulled up to the local boot store. He was excited to get me inside and take a look around. I was a little anxious not to be pressured to buy boots with money I clearly didn’t have. He walked me around the store showing me the various brands, with emphasis on the best quality ones. Then he stood in front of a nice pair of boots and asked if I liked them. I told him I thought they looked nice, at which time he told me to try them on. Now I was getting anxious trying to figure out how to tell him I wasn’t in the market for boots (or pretty much anything) without being offensive. They actually fit pretty nicely! He immediately told the salesperson we would take them and headed to check out. He pulled out his wallet amidst my resistance and paid $300 for them! I don’t know what good boots cost these days, but that was a LOT of money to me in the 1980s!
The gesture—like a lot of his other gestures over the years—was grand! He was doing something for me that I clearly couldn’t have done for myself, which made me grateful, but also a little guilty. The money spent on the boots was about the amount of a month’s worth of groceries for our little family, or even half a mortgage payment! My wife would have loved to have a few extra dollars to buy some new clothes and, frankly, I would have felt much better about her doing that than me getting those boots. It made them a little difficult to wear, but I felt like I should wear them every chance I got (which was not often) to show some gratitude for the gift I had been given.
While I was grateful, I have thought over the years that sometimes the gift might actually be to benefit the giver. Those boots represented something that he loved and would have loved to get as a gift from me—if I had any money to buy them for him. The whole process started me thinking about my own gift giving. I reflected on the New Testament verse in Mathew 7:9-11: “Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask him?”
Don’t get me wrong, the boots were a good gift, just maybe not the gift that we needed at the time. Sometimes the gifts we give are an effort to project onto someone else what is important to us. Do we buy things for our kids to make sure they are wearing the right clothes or driving the right car or taking the right trips? These may be a reflection of our own effort to show what great parents we are, not an effort to really help our kids to grow and develop. Some of these gifts might even hinder their personal growth, even if they “feel good” at the time they get them.
Some of the great gifts I have received in life met a basic need when I most needed it. Occasionally I have gotten what might not be thought of as a “gift” from my Heavenly Father. Such occasions caused me a little stress and required me to make a commitment to good that helped me to learn and grow from my experience. I have come to understand that most of life is designed specifically for that purpose, because He who gave us the gift of life knows exactly what we need to help us grow and develop from this experience. He is the great gift giver who truly understands our needs and provides the means to fill them.
I plan on keeping those boots for the rest of my life. I am still grateful for the gesture of the giver, whose intentions were undoubtedly good. It would not be right to criticize those intentions, but the experience can serve as a reminder to me to seek out the best gifts—for both myself and others. When we can seek to understand the needs of others and give them gifts that help meet those needs, then we will begin to be great gift givers, like our Father in Heaven.
Right Click to Download MP3 Version
Jerry is the author of “Partners with God, Using His Teachings and Example to Raise Our Kids” and has been a guest speaker at numerous gatherings, firesides and organization events, as well as working as a facilitator for individual families.
Jerry and his wife Melanie are the parents of 12 children and currently have 13 grandchildren.