Wednesday night Jonathan and I arrived in Rapid City about 10 o'clock our time and 9 o'clock Rapid City time. In the parking lot on our way to the motor home that was to be our home for the next two nights during my chemo treatment, we passed the well-lit windows of Bible Christian Church where people were sitting listening to a revival message of Rev. John Brewer.
I tried not to feel too guilty for not arriving early enough to attend, but Jonathan had worked all day, we had struggled to get packed and on our way by seven our time for the 2 1/4 hour drive, and I am usually staying away from most populated situations except our little church Sunday morning and quick excursions.
As we got out of our warm van into the cold outdoors, I found myself feeling worn out, cold, and a little blue (and still feeling guilty). I wasn't sure what this different motor home was going to be like, since the evangelist and his wife were staying in the RV that Jonathan and I usually stayed in.
But what should meet my astonished eyes inside but this sunshine basket with a card on top that said it was for me!
All thoughts of cold and guilt vanished with the warmth of this generous and beautiful surprise that I assumed was from someone in the church, because someone in the church had left a bag of edible treats for us another time.
Whoever packed this basket must have known some things about me, because first of all, the basket was a clothes basket and who knew I needed a new clothes basket? This was the very best color for a clothes basket for me! Snuggled in with a fluffy antique rose blanket and a lush gray bath towel were extra virgin olive oil, pistachios, sunflower seeds, a pretty apron, Pioneer Woman dish towels (to replace some very worn out ones I have) french fried onions, some illustrated children's songs, a bath mat, and more.
What puzzled me most was the socks. I could not understand why a South Dakota person would give a South Dakota missionary and cancer patient socks from North Dakota. That seemed most unusual.
Until I opened the card and discovered to my surprise that the basket had come from my brother Hoshea and wife Laurie who are fellow missionaries to the Native Americans but clear up in North Dakota near the Canadian border, on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation.
Aha!
Suddenly the socks held a meaning hitherto hidden, like the meaning one might discover at times behind unusual Christmas or birthday gifts that one is tempted to only think about in relation to its usefulness to oneself, or the pleasure it might bring to oneself, with little to no thought of the giver's attitude, place in life, or motive.
Gracious receivers will value the giver more than the gift.
After reading that card signed by my dear sister-in-law Laurie, I looked again at the socks.
Suddenly, North Dakota socks became meaningful to a South Dakota missionary lady. When I texted Hoshea and Laurie, I learned that they had sent the basket down with their son Andrew and his wife when the two came to the Black Hills for vacation recently.
The basket, with its North Dakota socks, had been sent with love from a brother and sister-in-law all the way down here to Rapid City.
Because of who the gift of socks was from and the love that sent them, this South Dakota lady will proudly wear those soft and cozy North Dakota bison socks!
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