The Difference Between A Gift And A Challenge

My daughter of the heart, Chrystie, wrote an interesting post on her blog concerning a conversation she had with a friend who works as a cancer care nurse. Chrystie was complementing her friend on being gifted to do a job Chrystie couldn't manage, not enjoying biology or feeling like she could handle dealing with cancer patients day after day.

Her friend responded by saying, "Well, I feel the same way about YOU. There’s no way I could raise a special needs child. You’re obviously gifted in that area and God knew that.”

Well, Chrystie's post was all about how she felt she is NOT gifted to do that. And I agree with her. From what she says, that's not her gift.

Now before you start accusing me of being an awful person for talking like that about the wife of my oldest son, and mother of one of my grandchildren, just know that I love her very much, and read on about WHY I agree with her.

You see, I believe most people do not think about or understand the difference between a GIFT and a CHALLENGE.

Chrystie's friend has a GIFT. She enjoys what she is doing. Most importantly, she chose what she is doing. Chrystie and I may not understand how she manages working as a cancer care nurse because it’s not our thing. We just don't have that gift.

And yes, I was trained as an RN, but trust me, it was not my calling. It was more what some of my family thought I should do, because "if you're a nurse, you can always find work." They didn't take into account that while I might have the brains to become a nurse, I didn't have the temperament to stay a nurse. Cause while I was actually quite good at it, I was not perfect. And any nurse who tells you he/she always makes the right decisions is a lair. Nobody is perfect, and all medical personnel will at some time or other either omit to do the right thing, or flat out do the wrong thing, and a patient will suffer for it.

I couldn't deal with that. I have a hard enough time dealing with making a mistake caring for one of my animals. It haunts me. So imagine how it haunts me to mess up the care of a PERSON. You have to be able to focus on how you are doing a good job helping people the majority of the time, not focus on when you mess up. I couldn’t do that.

But I digress.

The point I am trying to make is that while being a cancer care nurse like Chrystie’s friend is an admirable calling, it really isn't any different than other occupations I do not have a gift for and can not understand how someone could do day after day.

For instance, I don't know how Richard sits and writes programs all day, or Jess doing estimating, because I do NOT have the necessary gifts, and it would make my brain hurt to even try it. I wouldn’t want to be a research scientist, a physical therapist, a minister, a fireman, a full-time farmer, or any one of hundreds of much needed occupations, but obviously there are some people who do.

They choose to use their gifts in their occupation, and for the most part, enjoy it.

Being challenged is different. You don’t choose a challenge. No one says, “I want to give birth to a baby with special needs.” No one says, “I’d like to live a life of pain.” No one says, “I want to be diabetic.” No one says. . . well, you get the idea.

And when someone says "I don't know how you do that; I could never do it,” they really aren’t thinking about what they’re saying. I understand what they’re trying to convey, that they realize you’re dealing with a hard thing and they don’t think they could deal with it. And maybe they’re even trying to compliment you on how well YOU deal with it.

But the fact is, they WOULD deal with it, because if it happened to them, then they wouldn't have any choice. That’s the key difference between having a gift and dealing with a challenge, a matter of choice.

Oh, I suppose you could chose to abandon a special needs child, for instance. Or commit suicide to put an end to dealing with a health problem. Those are pretty drastic choices, however, so let's say you don't have much reasonable choice but to go ahead and deal with a challenge.

I think the biggest part of the time, most people do not have the natural gifts to deal with a challenge. (Otherwise, it wouldn't be much of a challenge, right?) Chrystie says she was never big on taking care of kids, let alone one with special needs. I can remember even as a teenager, when I’d read or hear about people dealing with pain, I’d think, “I couldn’t do that. I don’t have the courage.”

Life is full of ironies.

It seems like our challenges are growing experiences, where we learn to do things we would never have tried otherwise. We may even become so proficient dealing with a challenge that people think we have a gift. But anything you learn to do in order to deal with a challenge is not the same thing as having a natural gift you enjoy and choose to use voluntarily.

So yeah, I agree with Chrystie. She's no more gifted for raising a special needs child than I am gifted to deal with pain. Instead, I think she's tackling a challenge she would never have chosen to do, that really wasn't her thing, because she loves her child and wants the best for her.

I admire people who enjoy and choose to use their gifts. But even more, I admire people like Richard and Chrystie who rise to meet a challenge, who are doing something that is almost an ANTI-gift, because it’s the opposite of anything they were interested in or would have chosen to do. They’re taking the lemons life has handed them and instead of making a sour face, they’re making lemonade.

And that's the best any of us can do.