Don't get me wrong, it's nothing ignorant or irresponsible, but it would challenge us.
Growing up, I was always the toddler who loved to share. My mom always told me she loved that about my personality.
Money was always tight in our home because my mom valued being a stay-at-home mom, which I'm finding I respect more and more. Around Christmas time, my family would host an annual boutique in our home to help fund our Christmas. My dad is quite the wood-worker and, for weeks, my parents would put us to bed and go to the garage and create beautiful pieces.
This was before the days where boutiques were hip and trendy.
Several families would bring their hand-made crafts and, for a few weekends, our home would transform in to a makeshift shop.
This seriously brings me back.
I distinctly remember running around our house, so excited to explore all of the different trinkets for sale. One particular year, my mom's friend Marcia made a satin pink potpourri heart. I would run through the house, re-trace my steps back to that heart, breathe in it's flowery scent, and carry on (most-likely to our trampoline in the backyard).
Day after day, I would visit that pink heart, so my mom wanted to purchase it for me as a Christmas gift. She went to find it and, tragically, it was gone. Someone beat her to it.
Fast forward to Christmas morning. The tree is packed with gifts. Casey and I are waiting in his bedroom, which turned in to our holding tank, in our fresh new Christmas jammies (as was our tradition). My parents say the word and we go racing down the hallway to behold all of our meticulously wrapped gifts under the tree. However, this year is a bit different.
I go racing toward the tree, digging and digging passed all of the gifts designated for me. I keep looking in search of one crumply-wrapped gift. I finally locate the gift, lunging for it. Meanwhile, my mom is so confused as to what on earth I am doing. I grab the gift and, with all of the pride a 6-year old sponge-curly haired girl could muster up, hand it to my mom.
The satin pink potpourri heart.
I vividly remember counting my hard-earned dollars and pennies in order to save up for that heart. I remember hiding it under my bed for weeks, pulling it out every once in awhile to inhale it's fragrance before carefully returning it underneath my bed.
Somewhere, among the Anthropologie and Amazon shopping sprees, that girl got lost. I became something unrecognizable to that 6-year old girl more excited to give than to receive on Christmas morning.
The past year, I have been reading a devotional called, "Disciplines for the Inner Life" (It is no longer in print, so if you can find it on Amazon or Better World Books, snatch one up). It is exceptional. There are few like it.
The premise of this devotional is it's focus on a different topic every day, week by week. You read the same invocation, same Psalm, same benediction for one week straight. But every day of the week, you read a different verse and excerpt from a book on the given topic. The topics range from Humility, Silence, Adoration, etc.
Yesterday, I finished the topic of The Mind of Christ.
After leaving my home and the financial conversation with Matt, I opened this devotional at Starbucks, ready to embark upon a new week. The topic?
Generosity.
A very wise woman once told me one way God gets your attention is by bringing up the same topic over and over again.
I read in Exodus 35 of how men and women who were willing brought their gold and silver and gave of their time to contribute to the Tabernacle.
It was a matter of the heart.
Then I read this excerpt from Letters to Scattered Pilgrims, by Elizabeth O'Connor:
When the founding members, young and poor, were forming themselves into a properly incorporated community of faith, they struggled for discipline of membership that would help them and future members to deal concretely with at least some aspects of the handling of money. In its first writing the discipline read, "We commit ourselves to giving 10% of our gross income to the work of the Church."
Their proposed constitution and disciplines were submitted to Reinhold Niebuhr, an eminent theologian of the last generation, who had agreed to read them and comment. His only suggestion concerned the discipline on money. "I would suggest," Niebuhr said, "that you commit yourselves not to tithing but to proportionate giving, with tithing as an economic floor beneath which you will not go unless there are some compelling reasons." The discipline was rewritten and stands today in each of the six new faith communities: "We covenant with Christ and one another to give proportionately beginning with a tithe of our incomes."
None of us has to be an accountant to know what 10% of gross income is, but each of us has to be a person on his knees before God if we are to understand our commitment to proportionate giving. Proportionate to what? Proportionate to the accumulated wealth of one's family? Proportionate to one's income and the demands upon it, which vary from family to family? Proportionate to one's sense of security of the degree of anxiety with which one lives? Proportionate to the keenness of our awareness of those who suffer? Proportionate to our sense of justice and of God's ownership of all wealth? Proportionate to our sense of stewardship for those who follow after us? And so on, and so forth. The answer, of course, is in proportion to all of these things.
Matt and I spent this Christmas with his family in Michigan. Before his mom took us to the airport to head home, we stopped to have lunch (seriously the most delectable homemade sweet potato chips with a cinnamon honey dipping sauce....I digress....). During the course of our meal, we struck up a conversation with our server and found out she was a full-time student, full-time server, single mama. She mentioned that she worked a 12-hour closing shift the night before, before turning around and opening the restaurant the next morning.
As the bill came, of course, we fought over who paid. After some friendly, heated discussion, we decided Maggie would pay the bill and we would leave the tip. I think our bill might have totaled $38. Matt grabbed for a $20. My immediate thought was to snatch the large bill (I'm not proud of this). Realizing he was digging back in to his wallet for additional money, my heart began to palpitate!
He wasn't done.
We ended up leaving the server a very significant tip. Before getting up from the table, I was able to silently thank God for my incredibly generous husband. I wrote a Bible verse on the receipt (pastor that I am) and told her we hope she had a Merry Christmas. I quickly ran to the bathroom before meeting Matt, Maggie and Rae out at the car.
I know God had me run to the bathroom so I could see what unfolded after we vacated the table, teaching me a serious lesson.
The scene I observed brought tears to my eyes and a serious gut-check.
Our server had gathered a few others around her, with her hand securely placed over her mouth, trying to take in what had just taken place. I watched her mouth, "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!"
Then she saw me.
And she immediately came over to hug me. She had tears pouring down her face.
God showed me in that moment that money was far better off with her than spent on some Anthropologie cardigan that will end up in a donation bin.
