The Blanket

I wrote the following post on November 27, 2008. That was over two years ago, and though my writing style isn't very good right now, it was much less so then. I didn't edit the post except a few of the worse grammar mistakes. I think part of the reason I didn't publish it then was because I realized I'd worded things oddly and maybe a bit extremely in places.



Every Christmas my family has a gift exchange and last Christmas my sister brought a really nice fleece blanket.
Of course, I really wanted it and when I didn't get it in the gift exchange I went about trying to trade the cheese I'd received for the blanket my cousin got.
This was very selfish of me because Ik new he would just give the cheese to someone else because he doesn't eat cheese, but I was so intent on what I wanted that I went about getting it to the disregard of others.
So he thought about it and ended up giving it to me a bit later, When we headed home I saw that mom had the cheese and found out shed traded my cousin the cheese for her hardware store gift certificate, it was then that I first saw how selfish I'd been in getting the blanket.

I rarely used the blanket because whenever I thought of it I felt awful, and so it pretty much just sat under my bed until the next time I saw my cousin, which was Easter.
But I didn't talk to him about the blanket that day, because I wanted to wash it first since I'd let the cats get on it, and because I wasn't about to do it behind Mom's back and I didn't want to admit to anyone how selfish I'd been.

I didn't see my cousin again until this Thanksgiving. So I started by getting Mom's approval of me giving the blanket back (on the grounds that I felt I had obtained it selfishly), then I washed it. I tried to give it back on to him when he was on his way out so that I'd be outside where nobody else would see us and find out about my unthoughtful deed, but he made me go back inside with him where there was light and people.
So I told him my story and told him why I wanted to offer the blanket back to him. He gave me his side of the story, which was this: He got the blanket in the gift exchange but didn't actually want it, so he traded the blanket for my cheese (also something he didn't want), then traded the cheese for mom's gift certificate (which to him had more value than the other things.)

That's the story of the blanket for you. Mom, as far as I know, was happy with the cheese; my cousin was happy with the gift certificate; and I was unhappy for eleven months because I didn't resolve my sins of selfishness and unthoughtfulness.
I see it as God's way of teaching me to be selfless and to resolve any wrong deeds I've done against another person.
I think that's pretty amazing.