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About Giving

About giving. Last nite I did my normal get-ready-for-bed ritual. I put on my jammies, brushed my teeth, put lotion on my face and hands and then went to check on my girls. They were fast asleep and I reached out to them in order to touch them as I prayed over them. When I touched my oldest’s hand I realized it was quite dry. I thought to myself “I’ll need to remind her to put hand lotion on in the morning.” Then the thought hit me “why don’t I just do it now?” So I went and got some of my own special, sweet smelling lotion and began rubbing it into my sleeping daughter’s hands. As I rubbed, I prayed and asked blessings for her. I then did the same for my younger dd. During this time I thought to myself, “Well, I didn’t need to spend the time putting on my own lotion earlier. I’m getting more than enough rubbed into my hands as I rub it into theirs.” Just after thinking that I had a revelation about giving.

How often am I worried about getting “all my ducks in a row” and things under control in my own life before I even think of reaching out to give, to help others? (making sure I had lotion on before bed and almost not bothering with my DDs)

How often do I say- “Oh I can do that some other time. I can’t be bothered now.” (walking away and thinking I’d remind them in the morning about hand lotion)

As I sat there rubbing lotion into my sleepy girlsÂ’ hands I realized that what I was giving of myself was small but in the giving- I was receiving. As I put the lotion on their hands it was, in turn, rubbing into mine. When we give to others, whether itÂ’s giving of our time or our money or our resources, I like to think that a bit of it rubs back into us. Rubbing lotion on my DDsÂ’ hands was just a small thing for me to do but as it soaked into their dry, chapped skin I could feel the difference it made to them and I could immediately *see* the difference. What I gave was just a small token to me but it made a big difference.

A couple of years ago, I took my youth group on a missions trip to Tennessee; while there we spent a day with Widows Harvest Organization. We thought we would be helping them build or repair things; instead we spent the day mowing lawns. As we started, my teens were sullen and disgruntled. They felt the job was beneath them and wasnÂ’t making the impact they wanted to make. Then later in the day their perspective changed. We mowed a large yard (about 2 acres) for a crippled elderly widow. She cried when we got there- said sheÂ’d been calling Widows Harvest daily for 2 weeks asking to get her lawn mowed. She was upset at how overgrown it looked and how incapable she was of doing anything about it. She talked about her fixed income and how she couldnÂ’t afford to pay anyone to mow it. She cried tears of joy and thanked us over and over. My kids were stupefied! They didnÂ’t realize until that moment that something that meant so little to them meant the world to her.

Sometimes I forget the lesson we learned that day. That what ever we can do, be it little or small, makes a difference. People are always saying “if everyone just helped out a little we could . . . .”

Too often I am wrapped up in what I need to get done in a day. I think- I canÂ’t help someone else when I canÂ’t even take care of things here at home. I have just enough money for our groceries- how could I help someone else?

Beautiful...

10:13 AM, 2006-Feb-3 .. Posted by Anonymous

what a touching story of love and giving.
Val

Untitled Comment

11:12 AM, 2006-Feb-3 .. Posted by kayinpa

What a great illustration! Thanks for sharing.