Here is the true story, the one worth remembering: You are a gift.
From the time we are old enough to listen, the world presses a sad story into our ears. It seeps into textbooks, hums from televisions, and slips into conversations in a thousand small ways:
You are an accident. You are here by chance. The universe is empty. Death is oblivion. So grab what you can, while you can. Hustle. Grind. Eat, drink, and be merry. Tomorrow you die.
That is catechesis of despair. The world’s dogma. And saddest of all, it is not true.
Here is the true story, the one worth remembering: You are a gift. You were fashioned. You were sent. You were given, first to your parents, then to your family, then to those whose paths braid into yours. And they, in turn, are given back to you.
Everything—your life, your breath, the black soil and the bright sky above it—everything is gift from the Father of Lights.
This is the greatest story of all, because it is the Ancient Good’s story, the first story, the story of how you came to be, and the garden of delight that awaits you on the far side of this vale of tears.
Gift at Home
At home, the true story burrows deepest. Parents are given children, and children are given parents. A spouse is gift to another. In the daily mess of laundry, arguments, shared meals, and laughter, God is telling his story of gift and giftedness.
But the rival tale presses in here too. It says family is accident, marriage only a contract to be torn when the thrill fades, children burdens to be managed rather than blessings to be received. The saddest story seeps under doorframes and into bedrooms, urging us to see one another as obstacles to self-fulfillment rather than as gifts of mercy.
Gift in Neighborhood and Work
In the neighborhood, the story of gift flickers as well. Neighbors are not interruptions but God’s provision: a face to greet across the fence, a hand offering help, a soul to love. Work, too, is not only transaction or toil, but vocation. The chance to be God’s gift to others through skill, craft, and service.
The Machine of despair, however, rewrites this tale. It insists neighbors are strangers to fear, or competitors for limited resources. It preaches that work is meaningless drudgery, worth only the paycheck it yields. And worse, that our value is measured entirely by productivity. But Christ makes holy carpenter’s hands and fisherman’s nets, making them instruments of service, proof that even labor is gift given and gift received.
Gift in School and Gym
Even in the places of training—at school or the gym—the same story is told. Teachers are gifts to students, and students to teachers. Friends spot one another under the barbell, reminding us that strength is not built alone.
Yet the catechesis of despair intrudes quickly. Education is reduced to credentialing. The gym becomes a hall of mirrors, vanity disguised as discipline. Competitors instead of companions. But the true story breaks through even here: your mind and body are gift and in sweat and study you are handed back to yourself by the hand of God.
Gift in the Church
Nowhere is this more radiant than in the Church. To stand in the pew is to stand among gifts; each person blood-bought, each person joined to Christ, each person handed to you as brother or sister. Your presence, your voice in the hymn, your “Amen” at the table is God’s gift to others, just as theirs is to you.
And so, here the sad story works hardest to intrude. It hisses that the Church is only a human institution, a relic, a club. It tempts us to see our fellow saints not as gifts but as irritations, their sins heavier than their forgiveness. But Christ speaks louder: “You are my Body.” The Church is God’s garden of gift, giving us a stain-glassed glimpse of the Paradise to come.
Gift in Paradise
And that is where all this leads: to the restoration of the first story. To the garden remade, the Paradise restored, where gift is all in all. In the new creation, no one will hustle or grind or grasp. All will receive, all will give. The Tree of Life will be our center again, its leaves for the healing of the nations, its fruit gift unending.
The sad story will be unmasked as the lie it always was: a brittle tale of dust and despair. The true story—the story of gift—will be fully revealed as the everlasting one, written into creation by the first breath of God’s Spirit over the waters.
Remembering the Story
So when you are tempted to believe the lesser tale, when the world tells you otherwise, when the wrong done to you feels heavier than your shoulders can bear, remember this: you are a gift.
At home and at work, in the gym and at school, among neighbors and in the Church, you are given, and you are receiving gifts in return. Above all, you are the gift of Christ to the Father, ransomed and restored by his blood, destined for the Paradise of gift unending.
The Machine chants its catechesis: You are an accident. Death is the end. Nothing matters.
But we know the truer one:
You are a gift.
Your life is gift.
And all within it, gift upon gift.
