Thinking, That's All: Giving

We've been talking lately about generosity in our house and what that really looks like, conversations inspired by a series at church, Living a Generous Life.

And at first, I think we thought we were way more generous than we actually are.

I mean, we give consistently, and we give joyfully

but of our money mostly.

So while we've discovered our palms are largely open with giving our money, we've also come to realize we aren't very generous with our other resources -- the ones that we feel, perhaps, are much more precious.


Namely, for me especially, time.Maybe because time is what seems most fleeting, most like it's constantly slipping through my fingers

As I was working on a visual for church about generosity and giving, I kept going back to that image of the open palms.

A wise mentor once shared that trying to hold onto those fleeting precious treasures is a lot like trying to grab water  and bring enough to our lips to quench deep thirst;

it's impossible to do.

But that's not the only thing that clenched fists make impossible.

When we hold too tightly to anything,we also aren't open to receiving renewing fulfillment either -- whatever is poured out can't be caught by tightly bound fists.

And plus. We haven't been given much to keep it all to ourselves.

We've been given much so we can spread the wealth around

with palms open wide and hearts full of thanksgiving.

Just Write: A Light

In the heavy blanket of night, she hears him cry out for her.

She presses her feet to the floor and tight-rope walk the lines burned into her memory from the day's sun.

She fumbles through the blackness, coated thick like tar spread out over uneven ground beneath her feet, before she reaches him, sighs small relief before resigning again to slumber, closing her eyes to the darkness that spread out for miles and miles in Pignon, Haiti.

****

In the heavy blanket of night, I hear him cry out for me.

I press my feet to the floor and tight-rope walk the lines of light spilling from the soft shine of a bulb.

There is a glowing path in the darkness, and it gives me just enough to walk without fear through the spaces of post-dawn morning.

There's comfort found in those lines of light that I often take for granted when I flip that small switch. 

****


It only takes one little streak of light to break the cover of darkness.

I wonder if today you might be that little sliver of light?

For every new like Bright Hope International receives between now and May 31, one flashlight will be donated to a family in a village in Haiti without much light in the post-daytime hours.

Such a simple action, such a complex gift given.

A like for a light.

Be light today.

 
Disclosure: Our church supports ministry and missionaries in Pignon and this is an effort to aid the work already already being done in that community. Will you share the love?
 

Bigger Picture Moments: Does God Really Care about Social Justice?

I go for long stretches of days without remembering her until I slow down the pace of life enough that I actually take the time to see her beautiful face, framed with dimly blond hair against creamy-milk skin, staring at me as I wash dishes.

Last winter, she was out of school for a few weeks because of kidney problems likely due in part to lack of nutrition during cold and flu season. 

When I read in her letter that she'd been so sick, my heart flipped and skipped beats, praying for her full recovery. I asked her, via return letter, if she'd visited a doctor; and as I recall, she's never answered that directly.  

As I licked the envelope, sealing my words into it, my mind struggled to grasp, to understand the world in which our sponsored child lives. 

A world where missing school for weeks is a normal occurrence; a world where doctors aren't just a phone call, a visit, a copay away. 

When I think of her, when I pray for her, I pray for her protection. I pray that she would come to know His grace, His mercy, His forgiveness and redemption. I pray her needs would be met. 

But sometimes I find myself, in the midst of those prayers, asking God why. 

Why are children suffering? Why do parents have to struggle to provide for their families? Why, God, aren't you doing something about it? Don't you care about social justice?

This time of year especially  -- in the days leading up to the abundance of Thanksgiving and Christmas -- the questions brew and stir and become louder, barking in my need-saturated mind. Why? Where are you, God, in the midst of injustice?

But also, where am I? Where is my mind and heart?

****

We sat together, John and I, within the four walls of a building constructed of love and provision. 

We call it our church, but more it is more than a building. It's a place, for me, of deep-seeded community and growth and heart. It's a place I'm often challenged to be more the person I was created to be, a place where I'm challenged to decrease as He increases in me.

When Christy Davis, our World Outreach director, began sharing her heart during a co-led sermon with our lead pastor, she voiced her struggle with coming home to celebrate Thanksgiving with an enormous spread in a cozy, warm house after returning from a trip where memories of devastating poverty is reality for many of the faces she'd only previously saw on TV.

Her heart, too, cried out to God asking where on Earth He was? Why wasn't He there?

Why wasn't He providing for the third of the children who will die of malnutrition before their fifth birthdays?

Why wasn't He giving families to the 145 million children who have lost one or both parents?

She described how these numbers now had faces she'd seen, bodies she'd hugged and how the reality of such extreme injustice rocked her world and relationship with God.

So she went to the Word to find out if God actually cares about those souls who live on next to nothing.

And she saw God's heart:

"Blessed is he who has regard for the weak; the Lord delivers him in times of trouble. Psalm 41:1

If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he, too, will cry out and not be answered." Proverbs 21:13

"If anyone has material possessions and sees his neighbor in need and has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? ... Let us not love with our words or tongues but with actions and in truth." 1 John 3:17

As she read the verses aloud, I half recited them with her. My heart finds deep joy in giving, and my soul is stirred with empathy for anyone suffering. I've noted these verses before and found comfort in the tears I've shed for the suffering, the hungry, the needy, the desperate because God's heart really is for the least of these. And I finally found resolution to the question I, too, had been asking.

Is God really into social justice? Yes, of course!

The real question is: 


Am I? Are you? Are we? 

Do we really care about social justice?

The answers seems to be yes among the church. Dr. Scott Todd, a board director for Compassion International, shared that today the global poverty rate is HALF of what it was in 1981.

People are stepping up to the plate. They are sponsoring children, giving. But the need is great yet.

Christy shared that if Evangelicals alone simply gave 10 percent of what they earned, extreme poverty could be eradicated -- totally and completely.

Everything in my body wanted to shout yes! -- my family was doing its part.

But with knowing that the need is still so great, with knowing that there are still lives that are slipping away for lack of nutrition and health care and with knowing that I still have money left to take a trip to the coffee shop, I couldn't say yes emphatically, yes, totally. Especially after Christy shared one powerful truth:

"We must live simply so that others can simply live."

So do I? Do you? Do we?


Because I think that's actually what answers the real, burning question. 

{This week I am thankful to find rest and growth among a body of believers who seek to carry out the mission of Jesus -- to give hope and redemption to a hurting world.}

During the month of November, we are gathering our harvest of blessings and naming them one by one, sharing the gratitude in our hearts. Won't you join us? Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with thanksgiving in your heart. 

Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
Link up your moment at Alita's this week. Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.

Encourage.
Try to visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.

Bigger Picture Moments: The stuff in my closet

Welcome to Bigger Picture Moments, a weekly writing meme intended to foster creativity and help busy moms actively seek every-day moments that show us a glimpse of the bigger picture.

Amid fast-paced lives, sometimes we lose sight of the grander scheme; won't you join us in consciously trying to embrace and remember these moments - however small or large?

It looked like Noah's Ark threw up animals two by two all across the living room floor and down the hallway.

I resigned myself to picking them up for the third time, grateful that they would actually find rest there now that the boys were asleep.

I began filing away the books. And then I moved onto the laundry. And then the dishes and shoes and coats.

As I collapsed on the couch, another hour had slipped through my fingers while I was maintaing all of this stuff.

It's stealing my energy.

This stuff.

It's stealing my time.

I don't know about you, but servicing the house -- the every day sorting, cleaning and organizing of toys, clothes, shoes, books, socks, pans, papers -- is cutting into more and more of my time.

And some of it, admittedly, is necessary.

Like laundry.

We need clothes.

But does Baby E. need 10 pairs of overalls in size 18 months, half of which don't actually fit over his cloth-diapered butt?

Why am I putting energy and thought into maintaining -- cleaning, sorting and housing -- all of those overalls?

And, surely, you know, it's not just overalls, right?

I exhaled and sunk further into my thoughts about all.of.this.stuff, unable to write or carry on with my evening plans.

****
The next morning I was blessed to happen upon a post at Sorta Crunchy in which Megan asked her readers to get real.

She asked us to trust her with our deep holiday anxieties.

So I confessed.

I said I was feeling a bit like Scrooge this year at just the thought of the presents that likely will make their way through our door.

Already overwhelmed by the amount of things we have, I couldn't imagine the thought of more stuff without gettin a little anxious.

That's not like me.

I love giving presents.

I love putting thought and effort and time into picking out or making a gift someone will enjoy.

But I feel like we're bursting at the seems.

I don't want to be the grinch.

I don't want to be the one who asks our family to NOT give gifts when so many of our family members find the same joy I do in giving. After all, giving is a love language, and I don't want to stiffle any expressions of love.

But how do I get out from under these mounds of things?

Poor Megan. All this in her comments section.

Apparently my house wasn't the only thing bursting at the seams.

****
Do you know Jan Silvious?

Our Wednesday morning class had the pleasure of asking her some burning questions about mentoring relationships or just life in general yesterday morning.

I unloaded all of thse thoughts I'd been pondering about stuff right there.

And, simply, she gave me some perspective:

Don't stymie love languages and put restrictions on gifts -- it's part of the joy of our season of celebration.

But, she said, for every thing that comes in, something goes out.

Including toys.

Even if the boys still play with and enjoy those toys.

And clothes.

Even if I think I might wear that black sweater sometime this year, though I haven't worn it in about four years.

But, I stammered, aren't I being a good steward of our resources by saving all of this stuff so that if we need it in the future we don't have to buy it, thus saving us money that we could send to missionaries in Africa?

No, she'd said. You're being a good steward by giving those things to people who need them NOW.
***
I packed at least three boxes worth of stuff last night after G. and I had a conversation about Christmas and giving and sharing.

"So you know, bud," I'd said. "Our family loves us, and they like to show us how much they love us through giving us gifts we'll like."

"Like toys?" he asked.

"Like toys," I said. "But you know, we have a lot of toys, don't we?"

"Yes," he agreed.

"Wouldn't it be nice if we gave some of our toys to kids who would like to play with them when we get new toys?" I ventured.

He pondered it.

"Yes," he finally agreed. "If I get more toys, we should give some away."

I smiled.

"Some kids don't have toys, mom," he said.

I could tell some of our prior conversations had actually found a home in his brain.

"You're right," I said.

"So it'd be good to give some away," he replied. "We can always get new toys."

And with his simple words, the lights came on.

This stuff issue?

This is MY issue, my very own heart problem.

I've been trying to put restrictions on my generous family members when it comes to gift giving because if the stuff doesn't come in the house, I don't have to deal with it.

That's wrong.

I've been trying to put responsibility on shoulders it doesn't belong.

Their love language of giving is something to be embraced.

I need to get a hold of my own issue with stuff and why I keep it and why I let it sit in boxes in the basement.

I need to break free from this depression-era mentality of holding onto so many things because God is meeting our needs.

In fact, He not only provides the needs, He also provides the wants.

So, no, the issue isn't that others are being too generous {don't you love how I can turn my own heart issue around like that?}; it's that there's some sort of fear in my heart that we won't have what we need.

And I need to get a handle on that.

****
I thought a box of Matchbox cars weighed only a pound or two.

I was wrong.

It weighs tenfold.

It's not motherhood that's imprisioning me.

It's the matchbox cars.

The dozen overalls stacked in E.'s closet cubby.

The handfuls of magnets I find strewn across the wooden floors.

And it's my job, in this realization, to squash my heart issue here -- to make giving and recieving and donating all constant practices so that for me and for my boys a box of Matchbox cars weighs what it should -- a pound or two -- instead of the ton it's come to feel like on my shoulders.

Read more Bigger Picture Moments or link your own at Sarah's this week.