I have been thinking a lot about boxes lately. First, a little bit of backstory is in order.

Therapy clients often find the therapeutic relationship, its limitations in particular, to be both incredibly healing and intensely frustrating, often for the very same reasons. I’m no exception. Most recently my particular beef with it is the knowledge that while my therapist and I share space and time and conversation together, we are both having completely different experiences with the process. My feelings for him are likely way more intense than his feelings towards me, and they’re likely very different too. He’s my only individual therapist whereas he has close to twenty other clients, all with varying levels of attachment to him. Our experiences can and should be compatible with each other’s, but there is no way they can be the same or even similar.

I honestly find that scary. I’m pretty sure that connects directly to the growing realization that I was raised by at least one narcissistic parent, the other one being an enabler and of no real help to me. Talk about two not only different but completely incompatible experiences! At just about every age, here I am assuming that I’m a beloved child when it turns out I’m merely supply!

The truth is that every human relationship consists of shared and overlapping but different experiences. My husband’s experience of being married to me is different from my experience of being married to him. My children’s experiences of their relationships with me are different than my experiences of my relationships with them. I could go on and on about me and my friends, me and my fellow churchgoers, me and my pastor… you get the idea. All these relationships appear to be stable enough, many of them are life giving to me, and yet the differences in shared experiences are going to persist. How will I ever be OK?

When I began building a *Catechesis of the Good Shepherd* Atrium a number of years ago I found myself in need of wooden boxes. Wooden boxes with specific dimensions. What a blessing it was that one of the neighbors of the church building just happened to be a master woodworker with an entire workshop set up in his garage! I went over to ask him for help. Sure, he could make me the boxes. It would take him less than an hour on each one and he had plenty of wood lying around. All he needed from me were the dimensions.

I offered to pay him for his time. He refused. He explained that his customers are very wealthy multimillion dollar homeowners who will hire him to build and install custom built cabinets and shelves where the combination of labor and materials runs into the five digits.

“You can’t afford to pay me for my time, and it wouldn’t make sense anyway. I’m happy to make you whatever you need as long as I have the time.”

True to his word, he has made me boxes and a few other things. He’s also repaired things for me. Anything to do with wood he can help with, and everything he’s made has been absolutely beautiful. He’s been an incredible gift to me and my ministry.

My woodworking neighbor is not exactly the type of guy I’d imagine having deep and long conversations with about our relationship or the existential meaning of shared experiences. And yet, we’ve communicated rather extensively about the latter for sure. It was always brief and in conjunction with discussing my various projects, but putting it all together… that guy could have made an amazing therapist!

He expressed to me that he well understood the very different impact and meaning him making me boxes would have on each of us. He knew I lack the skill, materials and tools, so the very thought of creating a simple box with specific dimensions would feel to me like an impossible task. For me to receive such a box would represent a near miracle, certainly a profound act of generosity. To him, on the other hand, making these boxes was kindergarten stuff. He probably was making such boxes while in kindergarten (he got started early in his dad’s wood shop). It wasn’t even worth it to him to charge me for the time, he’d barely even remember doing the work other than maybe as a nice thinking break during a pause in crafting his more ornate creations, and it was a super easy good deed for him, a way to make a real difference in other people’s lives beginning with mine.

To him, making my boxes was basic stuff and nothing special. To me, it meant the world. That was our shared experience.

And it was totally OK. Both of us were blessed in different ways. Both of us derived joy from the work. Both of us were living out of our true selves and our God ordained callings—in that moment him by giving and me by receiving.

And God was through that experience preparing me for something He would bring into my life later—my very own therapeutic relationship. In it, in similar ways, I would be the recipient of a number of gifts which to my therapist would be basic therapy stuff (though done with love per our shared spirituality), but which would seem miraculous to me as I very much needed those things in my life. For him, something that came with the territory. For me it would mean the world. Still does.