What is the difference between a talent and a gift?
I’d never clearly thought about the distinction, but the following excerpt from author and speaker Henri Nouwen resonates with me. It’s also incredibly encouraging. So often, I feel like my talents fail me or aren’t enough to meet a need or accomplish a goal. Knowing in those moments that I still have gifts to bring is gratifying.
This concept also opens my eyes to the value and contributions of others that I often overlook. I hope this simple yet profound idea helps you take another step toward Becoming Yourself.
More important than our talents are our gifts. We may have only a few talents, but we have many gifts. Our gifts are the many ways in which we express our humanity. They are part of who we are: friendship, kindness, patience, joy, peace, forgiveness, gentleness, love, hope, trust, and many others. These are the true gifts we have to offer to each other.
Somehow I have known this for a long time, especially through my personal experience of the enormous healing power of these gifts. But since my coming to live in a community with mentally handicapped people, I have rediscovered this simple truth. Few, if any, of those people have talents they can boast of. Few are able to make contributions to our society that allow them to earn money, compete on the open market, or win awards. But how splendid are their gifts!
Ten minutes earlier I’d been sitting with a cup of tea, chatting with my wife and enjoying a normal morning. Out of nowhere, I felt a burning, cramping sensation begin to build in my upper abdomen. In short order, I was on the floor, and she was dialing 911.
EMTs helped me onto a stretcher, and the ambulance rushed me to the emergency room. On the way, I experienced waves of pain I’d never known in my fifty-three years.
At the hospital, I was quickly hooked up to IVs and equipment. As tests were run, the pain began to subside, then faded away before I was given pain meds. The blood work, CT scan, and other tests all came back negative. My gall bladder was removed five years ago, eliminating that as the potential issue. The doctors said the good news was that all major concerns were ruled out. The bad news was they had no idea what caused my pain. They released me with instructions to come back for further testing if the symptoms returned.
One side effect of that experience was a shattering of my illusion of control. Without warning, life took my plans, desires, to do list, and responsibilities for the day and stomped on them. In moments, I was utterly helpless to do anything but surrender—surrender to the situation, surrender to the pain, surrender to the medical professionals caring for me. It was a humbling place to be.
My love of certainty has been another casualty of that fateful morning. I’m faced with the reality that I have no idea what happened or if the mind-bending pain will return. Will it hit on my upcoming book tour? In an airplane? When I’m out with friends? Never? It’s an unwelcome part of my life that I simply have to accept.
Author and Harvard professor Henri Nouwen said this about our illusion of control:
What keeps us from opening to the reality of the world? Could it be that we cannot accept our powerlessness and are only willing to see those wounds that we can heal? Could it be that we do not want to give up our illusion that we are masters over our world and, therefore, create our own Disneyland where we can make ourselves believe that all events of life are safely under control? Could it be that our blindness and deafness are signs of our own resistance to acknowledging that we are not the Lord of the Universe? It is hard to allow these questions to go beyond the level of rhetoric and to really sense in our innermost self how much we resent our powerlessness. . . .
henri nouwen
I appreciate both his sobering honesty and the fact that he does not leave us without hope:
The astonishing thing is that the battle for survival has become so “normal” that few people really believe that it can be different. . . . Oh, how important is discipline, community, prayer, silence, caring presence, simple listening, adoration, and deep, lasting faithful friendship. We all want it so much, and still the powers suggesting that all of that is fantasy are enormous. But we have to replace the battle for power with the battle to create space for the spirit.
henri nouwen
How tightly do you cling to control? Learn to let go. Find something or someone outside of yourself that’s worthy of trust. Embrace uncertainty. Practice silence, listening, and honest reflection. Nurture deep relationships. Choose peace regardless of circumstance. If you do, you’ll experience a simple freedom, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.
When I was younger, I had an arrogance cloaked in humility, a certainty shrouded in religiosity. I was so sure that I knew the “right” ways to live, think, act, and speak that I wanted others to mirror them. I placed unreasonable expectations on people which caused tension. Rather than allowing them to be the amazing, unique people they were, I thought they should be more like me.
Author and teacher Henri Nouwen described the need for space in relationships this way:
A mature human intimacy requires a deep and profound respect for the free and empty space that needs to exist within and between partners and that asks for a continuous mutual protection and nurture. Only in this way can a relationship be lasting, precisely because mutual love is experienced as a participation in a greater and earlier love to which it points. In this way intimacy can be rich and fruitful, since it has been given carefully protected space in which to grow. This relationship no longer is a fearful clinging to each other but a free dance, allowing space in which we can move forward and backward, form constantly new patterns, and see each other as always new.
Henri nouwen, you are the beloved
As I matured over time, I realized how misguided I’d been, and that a root of my unhealthy expectations was my unrecognized fear that if they were different and “right,” then I must be “wrong.” When I backed off and gave people in my life the space they needed to be themselves, the tension drained from our relationships.
How are your relationships? Look honestly. Initiate real conversations. Share vulnerably. Apologize for unfair expectations. Cultivate healthy space for people to be fully themselves and to allow your relationships to grow. If you do, you’ll enjoy deeper connections, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.
