"Every generous act of giving, along with every perfect gift, comes from above, coming down from the Father of Lights in whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."   James 1:17

It is now the end of June.  I sit on a second-storey deck, overlooking a cornfield whose stalks are well over knee-high.  As I look out into the night, I see a host of lightening bugs blinking...mirroring the twinkling stars.  And I think, "What a perfect gift."  Professor Herman, a dog who is in my charge for the time being, is at my feet.  The Professor is a young dachshund barely bigger than my foot (to be fair, I have rather large feet).  He occasionally whimpers and huffs as puppies, and humans who are discontent without knowing just why, often do.  He is a good companion--now that he is tired--a perfect gift.  In the silence between less than professorial puppy noises, I reflect on some new experiences from the week prior.

Last week, sixteen high school youth, myself and three other chaperones embarked on a mission trip to West Virginia.  The whole trip was a perfect gift.  But there are plenty of reasons why it probably shouldn't have been.  Nothing tragic or horrible happened, but there were some less than perfect circumstances.  In the end, however, these very imperfections were revealed to be, instead, perfect gifts.

  

I spent hours in a minivan with four others.  All of us without having showered for some time.

We were forced into the dreadful habit of taking supper and 9 o'clock or (much) later each day.

I, and the other chaperones were besieged once again by high school drama (albeit without the hardship of being a part of it, or, I suppose, without the pleasure of being in the midst of it--however one wishes to recollect those days gone by).  [Startlingly, I realized that adults still busy themselves with similar things, we just have shame enough to hide it better.]

All of these were perfect gifts.

At one point, on the road, we decided to take a "short-cut" turned detour along winding roads through the hills and hollows of West Virginia.  The difficult and tricky driving along this road lengthened our trek considerably.  But it was a perfect gift...the scenery was stunning, and the driving was fun!

We were supposed to put up dry-wall in West Virginia.  But when we arrived on site for work, we learned that we would be replacing floors instead.  I have never seen sub-flooring, or what lies beneath.  We were split into three groups, and sent to three different houses.  The gentlemen in charge of the reconstruction after the flood did not accompany us.  We had no experience, and no direction besides: “tear up the old floor and put a new one in.”  I found myself leading a group of high-schoolers in this task.  Now, I know how to do many things, but my experience and learning did not include floors.  It was hard work to tear out the existing floor.  It was a little easier to lay out the new floor, but it turns out there are little methods to doing it right that are obvious now, but were far from obvious to me then.  After two days work, we left a family without a living room floor.  Were I to begin the project now, with what I learned from trial and error, the floor would have been finished--or at least would have been left in a usable state.  It was a humbling experience: to be so ignorant and unprepared for a task, to be forced to leave an unfinished job for others to complete, to leave a family in the lurch because of an inability to perform a job.  

But it was a perfect gift: the satisfaction of hard work; the quick, advanced learning that only comes through making mistakes; and the reliance on others who come after to finish what is begun, but cannot be completed; not to mention, the reliance on one’s workmates--how we were all equal in knowledge, all made equal by the swinging of hammers.

The mission trip was full of variation.  We all stood in the shadows of change--change from our normal routines and way of life.  We stood in the shadow separating us from what we knew.  And a great deal of the “plan” was changed in a moment to suit what we needed, and what we needed to do.  We were constantly overshadowed by a reality that did not fit expectation.  

And yet, I think everyone would agree that the trip, and everything about it, was a perfect gift.  We were given the incomparable joy of seeing God’s constant love and blessing through all of the variations and the change.  We learned that what we are given in life, whatever we are given, is a perfect gift from above--not because the gift itself can be appraised as perfect, but because of the nature of the giver.  The gifts of the mission trip were perfect because God gave them...were perfect because God was present in those gifts.

In God, there is no shadow or variation due to change.  And God is the perfect gift when life is full of variation and shadow and change.  

God was certainly with us on our journey.

We saw it.  We felt it.  We were transformed by it.

And now...it is a little easier to see perfect gifts in all sorts of unlikely places.

Thanks be to God.