You have a gift. Here’s how I know.

You have a gift. You have something unique and special and important. You’ve always had it.

Even if you don’t believe in God, it’s hard to argue that you showed up on the planet empty.

How do I know?

My six-year-old told me a few nights ago.

I didn’t understand that everyone had a gift until I had kids. I didn’t know everyone was wired differently until I had two kids.

And it didn’t all come together for me until I came home late.

I was speaking in Nashville and didn’t get to tell my kids good night.

At around 11 PM, four hours after they’d gone to bed, I went upstairs to give my kids a kiss on the cheek. I told our 9 year old L.E. good night first. She was deep asleep and barely stirred.

Next, I kissed our 6 year old McRae on the cheek. She was asleep, sweaty and wrapped deep in her covers and stuffed animals. As I walked to the door, though, she sat up and asked me an unexpected question:

“Did you kiss L.E. too?”

That is who McRae is. From the minute we met her, she’s had a big heart. If she gets a piece of cake at a party, she gets one for L.E. too. When I took her on a daddy daughter date, she didn’t want to go feed the turtles in the park because she thought L.E. would be sad that she missed it.

A thousand times in the last 6 years, she has shown a compassion bigger and more beautiful than my wife and I could have ever taught her. It’s who she is. It’s how she is wired. For a while, I just thought that was how little sisters felt about their big sisters. Until the other night when she woke up, and one question bubbled out of her heart. In the dead of night, deep asleep, her gift of compassion unconsciously tumbled out as she asked a question she wouldn’t remember the next morning.

“Did you kiss L.E. too?”

I don’t know what your gift is, but I do know you have one inside. And you’ve had it for a long time, and it might be time for you to bring it back to the surface of your life.