“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.”
When you have always worked, and you want to work, the
stress of being unemployed grinds on you constantly. Although I had no
immediate financial issues, there was high anxiety about the future. I had a
family to care for and a daughter with medical conditions.
This heavy stress plays tricks on your mind. You begin to
have irrational thoughts and fears. Years later, you regard some of these as
downright silly, but at the time, they seem totally normal.
As I entered my second month of unemployment in December
1992, the stress began to get to me. It isn’t easy to job hunt at the end of
the year since most companies pause their recruiting efforts until mid-January.
But having more free time means there is more time for those irrational
thoughts to fester.
There were two distressing thoughts constantly rolling
around in my head. The first was the fear that I would eventually lose my house
and my family would have to wander homeless in the street. Fortunately, that
never came close to happening.
The second was that I was a failure because I would be unable
to provide a turkey for our family Christmas dinner. This idea was
preposterous. We had plenty of money to afford a turkey. But that didn’t matter
much to me. I saw myself as the family provider, and if I didn’t have a job, I
had failed to provide this essential Christmas element.
Now, you may consider this chauvinistic, sexist,
paternalistic, toxic masculinity, etc. – throw the whole darn arsenal at me.
But that’s who I am; however, in this case, it was toxic because it traumatized
me every day as the holiday approached.
The voice inside my head yelled out:
“You can’t provide a turkey. There may not be a
turkey. You have no turkey, none. Your holiday dinner could be ruined because
there may not be a turkey. It is your responsibility to provide a turkey, and
you have failed. You have failed your family. What type of man cannot provide a
turkey?”
This hellish “turkey loop” was played in my head several
times a day, every day. I would guess obsessing over something unimportant is
your brain’s defense mechanism from obsessing over things that are really
important. But I was obsessed over this turkey problem. Of course, I didn’t
tell anyone about this fear because I knew it was irrational, yet there it was
every day.
A Turkey From Heaven
Two Sundays before Christmas, about twelve days prior, our
Sunday School group at church presented my wife and me with five large boxes of
food at the end of class. I was up front thanking the people for their
generosity, but then someone came up behind me and set a large frozen turkey on
one of the boxes.
Never in my adult life has a small gift made me feel so
jubilant. Just as worrying about not having a turkey created irrational, enormous
sadness, receiving an unexpected turkey produced tremendous joy.
I had a turkey! They gave me a turkey! And I no longer would
be tormented by this any longer. This is one of my best memories of this time
in my life.
It did cause some storage issues, however. The big bird took up almost all the space in our 90’s standard freezer located at the top of the refrigerator. My wife had to move some stuff around, but she made it all fit.
But Wait … There’s More
I felt much better that week not worrying about a turkey
and still being jubilant about the gift I had received. And then things got
even better. Friday afternoon, there was a knock on the door. It was Carl from
our church. He said that he had been delivering turkeys to needy families for the
church, and of course, I wasn’t needy, but he had ended up with an extra turkey
he wanted to give to me.
Of course, this was a white lie. If I wasn’t considered
needy, then what was my name doing on his list – he obviously had my address.
This was just his way of making sure I accepted the turkey. But before I could
explain that the church, in effect, had already given me a turkey, he literally
shoves the bird into my chest. I instinctively grab it, partially in
self-defense. But once I had taken possession of the turkey, Carl quickly
retreats and wishes me “Merry Christmas” as he sprints back to his car.
I put the second turkey in the fridge and explained the
circumstances to my wife when she returned home. Because Christmas is now just
a week away, we can thaw the first turkey in the refrigerator and store the
second turkey in the freezer. The plan is to roast the second turkey in late
January and then get our freezer space back.
And We Are Not Done Yet
Two days later, I took a Sunday afternoon nap. When I
awoke, my wife informed me that our friend Dave, who worked at the local homeless
shelter, had stopped by. He had been delivering turkeys to needy families … and
guess what … he had an extra turkey.
If I had been awake, I’m sure I would have tried to reject
this third bird. I know I was supposed to accept all gifts, but this was too
many turkeys for me to possess … which brings us back to this …..
“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.”
In eight days, I had
received more turkeys than I had room for. And you can’t press down and shake
together frozen turkeys, can you? Turkeys
had run over my freezer capacity, into my lap - so to speak. THE CREATOR
had just literally provided a “running over” of turkeys.
The question I posed in
Part 1 of this series, is how is this statement from THE MAN could possibly be
true. How could you receive so much you cannot contain it? Yet, there I was.
The turkeys were overflowing. The strange thing is I never asked anyone for a
turkey. I never prayed for a turkey. I just worried constantly about it.
But then, this heavenly
provision did cause an earthly problem: I had more turkeys than I could store.
That night, I called my friend Jim, who had a large freezer. After hearing my
plight, he graciously agreed to stow two of the turkeys for me. My family
enjoyed the second turkey in April and invited Jim and his wife Frannie over
for a cookout in August, where we feasted on the final bird.
“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.”
There are teachings from
THE MAN that I continue to struggle with. There are many others that I accept
as true by faith. But this one, I don’t need to accept by faith, because faith
is only necessary for the unseen. This proclamation, I know, is true. I have
held the cold evidence in my own hands.
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