What Did You Get?

As a kid, Christmas was all about getting. A list of things wanted. At the top of that list were a couple of biggies. Things that you really wanted and hoped for but you knew you probably wouldn't get. But still you hoped for them. And after Christmas. . . well I'm sure kids still do this . . . everyone was asking everyone, “what did you get?”

When a friend got something they really wanted, or at least if it was something that you would have loved to have, it brought hope that someday Christmas might come through for you too. Sometimes it brought envy.

For me, ole Santa just never seemed to come through with that Lever Action BB gun I was just dying to have. For that matter he could have brought me any BB gun. There were several different kinds of pump guns in the Sears catalog that would have been just fine, but the lever action, that was the gun that won the West. My friends got them, why couldn't I?

My dad had his reasons. Something about how they were too much like a toy and I wouldn't learn to respect guns if I had a BB gun. In my house you were usually given a lecture for  pointing a pretend gun at someone and saying “stick 'em up.” Dad was firm and serious when it came to firearms, and so I never did get that dream BB gun for Christmas.

But Christmas was always a delight. It wasn't often that I got what was on my list. It was almost always a surprise. Most times it was one that left me feeling happy and helped me to forget about that BB gun for at least a little.  

I remember the year that I got a little compound bow. I'm not sure how old I was but my brother and I each got one. I was really hoping for that BB gun and feeling disappointed that there wasn't a long and slender gift wrapped up with my name on it. But when I opened my more rectangular shaped gift, I was over-the-top happy! The most beautiful bow ever. A little wooden compound with wooden arrows. The arrows are long gone but I still have the bow. I'm not exactly sure how old I was but I remember that I couldn't pull it back. At a twenty pound pull, that had me pretty young. I'm guessing that it had to be sometime in the seventies. Back then the compound bow was a high tech thing. The first patent on a compound bow was in ‘69, so it was an early one.

All this rambling has me feeling old, but what I want to say is that that Christmas gift may have not been exactly what I was hoping for, but looking back, I am so thankful that I got it instead of a BB gun. I fell in love with the bow instantly, shooting and shooting and shooting some more. I tried to hunt deer with that little bow and luckily none wandered by as it was too small to do much damage. I would sit in the woods back on the farm just hoping for a deer to come by. A couple of years later I bought a Bear Recurve for $35. And not long after that a really fancy Hoyt Pro Vantage Tracer that I could shoot better than I could shoot a rifle out to about fifty yards. I wish I still had that bow but I gave it away a long time ago. My bows got  faster and smaller. I bought my last fancy compound the year before I got married. In fact the morning that Jenelle and I got married I remember spending a little bit of quality time with one of my groomsmen, flinging arrows. 

And I still fling a lot of arrows. Practically every day I'm shooting arrows in my basement, or when it's warmer, out in the yard. I've gotten away from technology and just shoot a bow with a single string. Not to get weird or anything, but shooting and understanding a traditional bow just feels more intimate than a compound. On top of that, it puts you in the front row seat when hunting and being out in nature, because you have to let the game get really close, all the while watching their every move. I probably don't bring home as much game as I used to, but I definitely enjoy the experience more. In the big picture, shooting a compound or a traditional bow is basically the same.  You try to figure out how to get that arrow to fly straight and hit where you want it. Figuring that out is about as satisfying as it gets. I could ramble on and on, but my point is this. Even though it wasn't what I was hoping for, that little bow was the best Christmas gift I've ever gotten. I made a metal rest and some sights for the bow and found joy in making it shoot its best. 

Life can be like that too. We look around and we see all those things that others have that would make us so happy. Money, big trucks, acres of land, good health, and a lot of other things. We wish and sometimes even pray for those things. And that can be ok. But when our focus gets so strong that we feel depressed and we scratch our heads and wonder why life is so unfair, we should probably look at it from a different angle. 

If we take a deeper look at our own lives, there are things that we have that others don't have and can't get. They are gifts meant for us to enjoy and for us to share with others. At first they might not even look like gifts at all. But when we recognize what we've been given and do our best with what we have, we start to find so much joy in those things. Eventually we come around to realizing that those little blessings that we've received are way more valuable to us than millions of dollars or big trucks or bucks or whatever.

With this being the New Year, I want to encourage you to look at your life, at what you've been blessed with. Maybe you didn't get that proverbial BB gun, but  I'm sure that you did get something. Let me ask it for you. What did you get?

Hope you have a great year ahead!