Today I have been pondering on what to write. An email I just received has stirred my thinking. I had sent an email to a company receptionist telling her I forgot to order two additional products that I will be needing on June 15 when I return from a trip. Here is her response:
“Let me know if you need anything else so I can make sure to have it by then! Will have the products here waiting for you, and I am going to give you the total for the two products….$60.88….if you need anything else on that day, let me know and I will have your total for you!!!”
Wow, customer service at its finest…taking the extra steps to make me feel like a million bucks and not a thorn in her side (which I thought I was being). Her email, which probably didn’t take much more than a minute, lifted me up. She taught me that it doesn’t take much time to make someone else’s day.
Just before reading that email, I wrote some personal notes to my granddaughter’s dance teachers. This is recital week and time for me to reflect back on yet another year of memories, sweet memories created by these wonderful instructors. Week after week, they pour their hearts out into these tiny little girls who have an attention span of about five seconds. I will never understand their level of patience, encouragement, and pure joy as they transform these little spirits into sweet little dancers, just in time for the end of year recital. The girls laugh and clap with glee. Oh, how happy and excited they are!
Giving and receiving. Isn’t it a magical thing? It takes both to complete the cycle. For me, it has always been easiest to give – and difficult to receive. However, both are required for the balance of energy. My twenty-four year old son held my feet to the fire to teach me this lesson this past year. Since his company provides his transportation, he decided to give me his car in gratitude for all I have done to help him get to the place in life he now enjoys. I balked and carried on for months, at least wanting to pay the remaining balance. He would hear none of it. Finally one day he firmly informed me, “Momma, we’ve covered this before. You need to learn to receive.”
I received yet another lesson this past weekend. My friend, a wonderful photographer, went with me to a state park a couple hours away to take some pictures for my upcoming book cover – 395 of them! She emailed me a few of them, and I was in complete awe at what she had magically produced. I told her I wanted to pay her as any other customer, and I asked her what I owed. Her response? “I want the photographs to be a gift to you . . . we had such a lovely time!”
Wow, it is so much easier to give than receive.
Then after reading her message, I reviewed the message of a friend of a friend of a friend asking if I could help her. She had tried, with no success, to contact a book producer that I personally know. She wrote to me asking if I could help in any way. I in turn sent a message to the producer explaining the situation, asking if she could be of help to this person. Within minutes, I received a response saying she would love to help her. Words cannot explain the excitement I felt as I grabbed my purse and keys and rushed out the door to go to Jazzercise. You would have thought I had just won $500. It was so very thrilling to be able to be of help.
Suddenly it occurred to me…when I deny others the opportunity to give to me, I rob them of this same heart experience. My drive to Jazzercise gave me a lot to think about this morning.
And so life goes, giving and receiving. Perhaps the lesson in all of this is, “Give with gusto and receive with grace, and the whole wide world will be a happier place.”
