Needs and gifts

I have a need to give. It was a thought I had when I was trying to understand some of my ways of interaction with others. It struck me as rather oxymoronic. I thought about it.


I know I didn't mean what I said. It sounded like I want to give someone a need. I tried to see it a different way. To say just what I meant. I have a desire to fill others needs. That is closer. I tried harder.

A "Need" is a thing that lurks in your life and makes it hard to find the joy. When I have a "Need" I try to fill it before it gets out of hand. So do we all.

Some "Needs" are big, like warmth and food, water or shelter. Some are smaller, like shoes and coats or gloves and mittens in winter.

Some needs are invisible, to be loved, to have friends, to know someone cares about you; Those are the ones I keep seeing all around me. They are invisible needs. They are hard to see, harder to fill, only filled by loving care between us. Those are the needs that draw me.

Some one said once that the needs we see in others are our own needs reflected back to us. My thought was that we can only recognize a need when we have experienced it ourselves. You can't see an invisible need, you can only see the need for what it is when you have known it yourself.

I want to fill the "Needs" I see in others. It's part of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I would like someone to fill my needs when I can't do it alone. I offer that to those I meet here, freely and with love.

If love is the only thing that will fill those needs then what I should say is, "I love to give". I want to show love by my actions, not just my words. It's what I seem to have a need to do; Show love to others who have a need for love in their life.

If they learn to see the needs that were met in them they will know them when they see them in others and, I hope, pass the love on by filling them. Then the love grows and spreads. That loving care for each other takes "Do unto others..", and changes it into "love others as yourself".

Then it changes "I have a need to give" into, "I have love to share". That love I share was given to me to meet the needs I see in others, not to keep all to myself.

Like His love, the Divine Love, it's free, no charge, no debt. It's not because someone earned it or deserve it, it's because I love to give it, as He loved giving it to me. He sends enough for me and extra love for all the ones I meet.

Those that let me meet their needs are doing me the favor of letting me have the joy in sharing. I have the joy of caring, the joy of sharing and the joy of knowing I may have helped a friend.

From a simple gift, a card, a call or the dollar I slip a pan-handler, to the time I spend giving someone a hand, it's my loving care I am giving. That's what He gives me to share.

I don't have a need to give. I have love to share and to spare.