What is the best gift you have ever received?
This question is a favorite icebreaker question, and I am always stumped when I try to answer it. As most icebreakers involve quick thinking, I usually give a superficial answer that, upon further reflection, is not actually a true one.
The things that always come to mind in the moment are gifts like the first computer I received back in 1994, complete with dial-up Internet and one of the earliest versions of Microsoft Windows. Did I feel grown up and important when I saw that gift under the tree! I also think about the early Christmas gift of tickets to a bowl game in Florida during my junior year in college. My college friends and I had a blast during that trip. These days, more often than not, I default to saying that the best gift I ever received was my children, who were all born just a couple weeks after the Christmas season. What a stereotypical mom answer, right?
But what really is the answer? What is the best gift I have ever received? Is it really something tangible like a computer or airline ticket, even if those tangible things carried intangible graces with them? Or is it something deeper?
I spent some time contemplating this question as I prepared this post, considering what gift has impacted my life the most thus far. I kept coming back to one thing in particular: Ignatian spirituality. I received this gift little by little over my first few years at a Jesuit school, and I have continued to unpack the graces of this gift ever since.
Over the past two decades, Ignatian spirituality has transformed my life. First, it helped me come to know myself as a beloved child of God, someone who is loved as I am, no matter what. Then, over time, engaging with it brought to the surface my deepest desires and showed me how much what I want matters to the bigger picture of my life. It helped me discover the unique gifts God gave me, gifts that only I can contribute to the world. Graces including confidence, understanding, self-knowledge, and courage that were showered on me through my engagement with the Spiritual Exercises helped open my eyes to recognize the perfect person for me to journey through this life with, my husband, Joey. Ignatian spirituality also gave me the tools to see what remarkable children God gifted my husband and me with and helped me discern the best ways to awaken them to their own belovedness and the gifts they have to share with this world.
I am not sure how this answer will fare next time that icebreaker question shows up, but I think that recognizing and naming the impact of the gift of Ignatian spirituality in my life is important. I also know that I cannot stop there. After all, the best gifts are meant to be shared!
As I journey through this Advent season, I am considering how to share this gift more intentionally with the world throughout the new liturgical year. I am asking God and myself, What are the best ways I can pay forward this gift and its life-changing nature?
What is the best gift you have ever received? How can you pay it forward as we begin a new liturgical year together?
