Giving Is Easy – But Receiving is Hard (The Giving Chronicles – Part 3)

 ^“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

The real test if someone has had a conviction, conversion, or life change event is not what they say, or in this case write, it’s what they do. You can say anything, claim anything, but does your behavior change?

You can dismiss or explain away my “Christmas conviction” if you wish, but my behavior definitely changed. Within days, I donated $100 after I got hit with two unexpected big repair bills. But the impact didn’t stop with that one check. That image of the kid with no Christmas presents had been burned into my brain.

As a result, donations were made to various Christmas gift fund drives in 1988, 1989, 1990, and 1991. But there was no check written in 1992. I had been downsized from my job in October, a casualty of the economic recession.  Now, I found myself on the other side – not giving help, but needing help.

But I was much too proud to ask anyone for help – even too proud to receive any help. I would have to be near death before I might agree to receive any aid from anybody. However, soon after the job loss, it was communicated to me that people were going to offer me stuff, and when they did, I was to accept the gifts graciously and say “thank you”.

You see, when you reject the help of others, you prevent them from following THE MAN’s “give command”. If you don’t receive the gift, you prevent that person from receiving the blessing of giving the gift. That’s wrong for you to do – a bad transgression.

And yet, I only actually asked two people for help the entire time. Yes, I had lost my income, but more worrisome was losing my health insurance. My oldest daughter (there were two now) had a seizure disorder. The seizures would occur at random times and, depending on the severity, could produce a $20,000 hospital bill before insurance. Therefore, going without insurance was not an option, and a cheap policy wouldn’t suffice. I would have to find a way to make the expensive COBRA payments.

I was given the name of a social service worker who a friend thought could help me with this expense. I thought it would be a wasted call since I lived in a different county than the agency served. I even started the conversation by apologizing for even calling her. But she didn’t care where I lived, she asked me what county I had worked in. Oh, it seems the funding covered both people who lived in the county or had worked in the county. Then she instantly approved me for two months of COBRA payments. I asked my mother later for help for the other two months' payments I would end up needing. And asking you mother for help is much easier than asking others.

“Give, And It Will Be Given To You”

But even though I didn’t ask, it doesn’t mean I did not receive. I had faithfully given in those prior years, and now it was coming back to me in awesome, incredible, mysterious ways. There were three distinct events that are relevant to THE MAN’s proclamation on giving. (the quote that begins this post)

#1 All The Bills Get Paid

I didn’t publicize my situation, but I didn’t hide it either, and almost immediately, people offered me assistance. It was difficult to receive it, but I put my pride aside, accepted the help, and said thank you each time. I can’t remember all the people and all the ways people assisted. I do know that my friend Larry, who died of cancer a year later, paid my electric bill for two months. Yes, I was in a financially difficult situation, but all the bills got paid with money from unemployment compensation and my wife’s part-time, holiday job.

However, things took a peculiar turn in early February. So much money was being given to me by a host of people that I had excess funds after I paid the bills. This was difficult for me to process. I felt guilty receiving money that I did not need. My solution was to give away the excess funds to two needy people. There was a person with cancer whose financial light was reported in the newspaper. I don’t remember the second one. I mailed out the checks, but within three days, that money, and more, had come flying back to my mailbox from other people.

This was one of those literal God-fearing moments where you put your hands up in front of you and take a step back in awe. I gave away no more excess money and when I returned to work several weeks later, my bank account was higher than before the job loss.. Let that sink in; I was unemployed for four and a half months and ended up with more money than I started with.

#2 A Very Merry Christmas

I instructed my wife to spend as much on Christmas gifts for our two young daughters as she typically would. You can tell Christmas gifts are important to me, so why should my girls suffer because their father doesn’t have a job? So, my wife and I didn’t exchange gifts that year, and she bought the girls everything they needed, or asked for.

But then, two days after she had completed her shopping, an anonymous letter arrived in the mail with $100 worth of gift certificates at Toys Are Us, with a note to buy gifts for my daughters. The “Geoffrey Dollars” had an expiration date of December 24, so off to the store I went. 

And it was difficult spending $50 (in 1992 dollars) on each girl after we had already bought all their obvious gifts. It must have taken me ten minutes pushing that full cart around the store one more time to spend the final ten dollars on that last gift.

Running Over, Into Your Lap

Both receiving more money than your expenses, and buying $100 more Christmas gifts than planned could be considered an overflow of blessings about which that THE MAN had decreed. But it is the third event that provides the stunning, complete, literal answer.

Next Time: The Story of the Three Turkeys