In my view each of us has been given a different set of gifts by God. Thus, the idea of "normal" makes little sense to me. I think we have choices to make about these gifts. We can bury them, we can use them, we can reject them and spend our lives wishing we'd been given something else. Personally, I think the most fulfilling choice is to use them. Here we have more choices. We can use them in ways that respect other people's individuality or we can use them in ways that would tend to push our own ideas of how we think they should be on them......that is, a gift with strings attached. I think it's the latter that gets us into trouble. We must also be willing to accept the gifts other people offer us. No one can be a giver without a receiver. Sometimes what we're offered by others may not be exactly what we want, but it's still what they have to give. ---Ford |