Last spring I hired a 12 year-old boy, Sammy, to help me carry some heavy boxes down from my attic. I’d been experiencing severe back pain and had been advised by my physician not to lift anything heavy. “Please, Missus, can we work next weekend too?” Sammy asked. “There’s a couple of new computer games I want to buy.” Much as I wanted to give my enthusiastic worker employment, the following weekend was Easter. I tried to explain how important the holiday was to me.
“Easter,” Sammy muttered. “Mmm. Wasn’t that when somebody killed that fellow?”
I cringed. How could a twelve year-old boy in the year 2009 not know the Easter story in all its sorrow and joy? I considered the boy’s history. Sammy’s parents were divorcing. Rumor had it that he was extremely disturbed about the separation. For most of his life, no one had paid him much mind.
“How about us taking a break, Sammy?” I asked. “I have some cold Pepsi in the refrigerator.” We sat on the stoop and I told him the Easter story, beginning at Christmas, agonizing on Good Friday, and rejoicing on Easter Sunday. “You and I are having a Good Friday of sorts in our lives right now, Sammy,” I told him. “You with your parents divorcing and me with my back pain. But God promises to see us through our earthly struggles. That’s what the Easter story is all about. Hope.” Sammy smiled. And he smiled even more when I gave him a tip that would allow him to purchase one of those video games. I wasn’t sure if he had completely understood the Easter message but I prayed that I had planted a seed that would germinate until one day he would surrender his heart to its life-changing message.
I’d gone to the mall for a pair of shoes and found that Macy’s was having a fabulous jewelry sale. Seventy five percent off with an additional 15% discount just for today. I grabbed five pair of dangly earrings, three for myself and two for gifts. It was then that I spotted a hot pink card, the trademark of designer Betsey Johnson, known for her exuberant designs and whimsy. Betsey is nearly 70 years old and she concludes each runway show with a cartwheel. She’s a fellow breast cancer survivor so I had to have a pair of her earrings. Right? All the way home from the mall, something disturbed me. There was nothing wrong with having pretty jewelry but what did I need with all those earrings? I mean, I only have two ears. My soul whispered to me the entire evening. I didn’t know exactly what it was saying until I read the blog of 26 year-old Ricki Smith.
Ricki is the daughter of one of my beloved coworkers and a missionary with an organization called Adventures in Missions.* After graduating college with a degree in graphic design, Ricki decided to postpone marriage to her high school sweetheart and give a year of her life to a project called The World Race. She, too, had a niggling feeling that all our consumerism leaves one empty at best. “Isn’t life more than just buying the newest Coach purse each season?” she asked her mother. “Even more than having the house with the picket fence, a husband and a baby, as wonderful as that can be?”
Ricki phrased it better than I have ever heard. “I’m uncomfortable being comfortable,” she said. That was exactly what my soul was telling me. Wasn’t life, The Giving Life, more than just owning one more pair of earrings?
What would happen, I wonder, if every believer in our world would do as Ricki did: reevaluate their life on the basis of being uncomfortable being comfortable?
What would I do? I’m starting by devoting an evening a week to visiting those who can’t get out. After I give a pair of those earrings to Ricki’s mother, that is. It’s not much but it’s a beginning. What would you do? I’d love it if you would write and tell me.
Today when I went to the doctor’s for a follow-up visit for my back pain, the nicest nurse took my vital signs and got my weight (ugh!). When she asked me how I had been doing, it was as if her soft green eyes gazed deep into my heart. In short, I felt that she really cared about me. When I told her what a great job she was doing (I’m a nurse too and I’m always evaluating care), she said, “My patients mean the world to me.” And I truly believed what she said.
Then another nurse, Jan, entered the exam room where I was waiting on the doctor and reviewed my medications. Jan was efficient, attentive to details. “The nurses here are great,” I commented to her. “Three nurses here have asked me if I’m allergic to anything. That makes me feel secure.” I hadn’t seen that little Sally before. “She sure is a caring nurse,” I told Jan.
“Mmm,” Jan muttered to the computer keyboard more than to me. But she couldn’t seem to find one tiny word of praise for Sally, the nurse who was at least 20 years her junior. When Sally returned to the exam room to hand me a new prescription, a curious thing happened. I found myself wondering about Sally. Was she who she appeared to be? Was she truly kind or was that a front? And how about her competence?
A key part of the giving life, I’m discovering, is paying genuine complements and offering sincere affirmations, particularly to our coworkers. When someone is doing a stellar job, say so. For when we ration our praise, it adversely affects this wonderful cycle of the giving life. We begin to wonder and doubt. Our coworkers suffer. Our customers suffer. And yes, we suffer too.
There’s nothing like a kind word aptly spoken in reference to another. When we take time to recognize the strengths of a fellow human being, our world becomes a welcoming haven. The Bible speaks of it in Proverbs 25:11: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” This week, I urge you to add some apples of gold to your days. The Sallys and Jans in your life will never be the same. And neither will you.
The Winter Olympics always bring to mind my dear friend Alice who has lived in heaven for 11 years now. Do I ever miss her this time of year. Alice lived across the street from my family when I was growing up. She became a second mother to my sisters and me after my mother suffered a near-fatal stroke one icy January.
Alice was the quintessential giver, forever thinking of others. She allowed herself few personal pleasures but one of them was watching ice skating on television. Whenever The Winter Olympics were going to be on TV, I’d drive to her big red brick home and stretch out on her dusty rose tapestry sofa with Alice’s granny squares afghan pulled up to my chin. Or if the weather was bad, we’d watch the skating portion of the program while chatting on the phone.
Even while Alice cheered for the skaters she so loved, she would be planning or making a special present for someone or wrapping it in one of her artistic, personalized creations. Alice always had a card table in front of her wing-back chair so she could “give” while she took in the skating on her little portable black and white TV.
When Alice had to go live in a nursing home, I traveled the hour and a half to her facility one snowy evening to watch The Winter Olympics in her room. When I arrived, she was dozing in bed, her various arts and crafts and devotional books spread out on the nubby gold blanket. I tapped her hand and called out, “Alice. It’s Roberta. Skating will be on in five minutes. I brought you a strawberry milkshake.”
Then Alice did something that was dearer than the Southern Living cookbooks she used to buy me each Christmas with her meager teacher’s pension, more precious than the Norman Rockwell figurine she saved to give me for my birthday when I was 16. “I have a surprise for you,” Alice told me excitedly. “Look in my drawer. I saved it from my dinner tray.” And there in the squeaky metal drawer were two graham crackers wrapped in a paper towel.
No one has taught me more about the role of prayer in The GIving Life than fellow blogger Karen Barber. Karen came up with the idea of a daily prayer walk in which she holds certain individuals and situations up in prayer as she walks in her neighborhood. I don’t know exactly where on the walk that Karen pauses to pray for me. I only know I’m eternally grateful she does. I’ve never confided this to Karen but I always imagine her stopping at a pink dogwood tree or a magenta peony bush and calling out to Our Father in my behalf. What a humbling, utterly delightful thought that is.
The whole concept prompted me to do something of a little different sort. Because of back pain, I can’t walk great distances. But I can pray. One day I was adding another red tomato pin cushion to my ever-growing collection when I thought of my friend Jeyenne who recently lost her beloved sister. I snapped a picture of my collection and tucked it inside a card with a note saying that every time I look at my pin cushions, I’ll be remembering her grief in prayer. Today I passed Jeyenne in the hall at work. “I’m actually doing better, Roberta,” she told me. “I think it’s all my friends praying for me. And the sweetest, most comforting thing of all is that you’re actually praying for me when you look at those little pin cushions.”
There was something about the specificity of my prayers that really touched Jeyenne. Touched her in the same way Karen’s prayer walk touches me.
Another friend has been chronically ill for some time and had to retire early from her job at my hospital. I have her name on a yellow post-it note on my steering wheel to remind me to pray for her on my drive to work. Another specific idea prompted by Karen’s prayer walk.
Today, I’m challenging you to have your own prayer walk of sorts. If you’re restricted like me, it may just be a walk around your house or apartment or a stroll in your backyard. You’re sure to find there’s no better way to live The Giving Life.
I just returned from a doctor’s appointment this morning for an evaluation of my back pain and was searching for a parking spot at work. Thirty minutes later I finally found a place to park but I was in such severe pain, I could barely stand, much less walk. And I still had the equivalent of two blocks to go before I reached my office.
Even worse than the physical pain was the emotional toil the consultation had taken on me. I learned that the nerve blocks that had been so effective in managing my pain back in the summer and fall could only be performed three times a year. And there was no promise that they would continue to be effective.
For four decades I’d suffered with excruciating pain in my head due to recurrent brain and facial tumors. Then a year and a half ago, a combination of prayer, medicine and “giving and gratitude” therapy had rendered me virtually pain free.
Continuous pain again, Lord? Please tell me, “No.” I felt so utterly alone.
Then an answer arrived right there in the parking lot. No, not in the form of a miraculous, innovative treatment or medication, but in the person of a man named Roy Shaffer. Roy’s been driving a van for our hospital for three years now as a volunteer. He canvases the parking lots on our campus looking for patients or staff who might need a lift. And Roy gave both my body and spirit a lift today.
When I climbed into his warm van on this icy January day, his stereo was playing an a cappella arrangement of Precious Lord, Take My Hand. With Roy’s warm smile, it was a foretaste of heaven. Roy took me right to the front door, and as he dropped me off, I said: I’d pay you, but I know you wouldn’t take it.”
“No, honey,” he answered with a big smile. “The Good Lord pays me. I wouldn’t trade what I’m doing for anything in this world.”
Is it any wonder that volunteers live significantly longer than the general population? It’s because they practice the Giving Life. And therein is my answer.
You are likely already ahead of my story. You know that there is One who is always there when we call on Him. And He will continue to send people like dear Roy to encourage me, one person at a time.
If only I can wait. In the meantime, I plan to follow Roy’s example, and practice with all the joy I can muster, The Giving Life.
Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite holidays for several reasons. Since my teens I’ve collected antique valentines. I love their sweet nostalgia and enjoy decorating with them year round. Right now, I have a collection of colorful love notes from the 1930’s and 1940’s under the glass top of a wicker table I use for a nightstand. They have hand-written messages, like “To my favorite teacher from Joey,” and “To Timmy from your pal Harry.”
Every February, Valentine’s Day gives me the opportunity to give my friends an extra special gift. I place all my addressed and pre-stamped valentines in a big padded envelope and send them to the kind folks at the post office in Loveland, Colorado. They postmark the cards with a different, exquisitely beautiful sentiment each year, and then send them on their way.
I thought maybe, you, too, would like to get in on the event. If so, affix 44 cents postage (more for heavier or odd-shaped valentines), then address and send them all in a large stamped envelope to:
Postmaster
Valentine Re-Mailing
446 E. 29th St.
Loveland, CO 80538
For international destinations, your cards should be in Loveland by February 4. Within the U.S. and outside of Colorado, your cards should reach Loveland by February 8. If your cards go to folks within the state of Colorado, they should be in Loveland by February 12.
Your valentines will be among hundreds of thousands of others sent by those who love to spread the gift of love. Volunteers will hand-stamp them with the special verse and send them on to your intended recipients. The verse and design are chosen each year from a contest held by the Chamber of Commerce and promoted through the Sweetheart City’s local newspaper. This year’s design is a view across Lake Loveland to the Rocky Mountains.
I promise, you and your dear ones are going to love this extra touch, started in 1947 by those who had a vision to share the romantic name of their town of Loveland with the world.
Blessings to you this Valentine’s season. And, remember, you have been loved with an Everlasting Love. The Bible promises it!
“Never again,” I said. “I’ll never put myself through that anguish."
I was talking about having another dog. After my beloved Spanky died in April 2008, I decided that was it. I could never, ever give my heart to another animal.
Then in October of this year, I was driving home from a routine run to the pharmacy when a tiny version of Spanky refused to budge from the middle of the road. The dog was trembling, and its face had a disoriented look, as if someone had just dropped it off there. Drivers had stopped and tried to lure it to a safe spot along the side of the road. The little black and brown wiry thing refused to budge. So I cracked my car door to do the same. The next thing I knew, a little black nose was nudging it open and the black and brown wiry thing was jumping across my lap and into the passenger seat.
She sat upright there like she had finally found home. When my ads in the newspaper were unable to locate an owner, she found a place in my heart too. (Well, maybe before then.)
I fixed Spunkles a fine seat in a squatty club chair in the library where she could cuddle up with an old quilt. She adored it for several months. But one freezing morning as I was leaving for work, she bolted from the door. I got in my car and followed her all over the neighborhood. “You’ve got that nice soft quilt and a warm house,” my heart cried. But Spunkles continued to find the muddiest and iciest spots on Aracoma Road.
Every now and then Spunkles turned around and looked my way as she ran, as if to say: “I can do this on my own. See.”
Then Spunkles got herself in a real pickle. Found herself in a neighbor’s fenced back yard. Funny thing, the gate was wide open. But Spunkles couldn’t see her way to freedom, seemed to think the only way out was to dig under the fence. When her head got caught in the wire, a neighbor had to shovel her out of the frozen earth.
More mud. Much more mud.
When I was getting Spunkles all soaped up back home, I thought how I, too, have a secure and loving heart’s home in Jesus. But sometimes I just have to prove I can make it on my own.
Then I find myself in a muddy mess. And I get so confused, I can’t even see the Door that’s been open all the time.
Thanks, Spunkles. I never would have guessed it, but you came to remind me of the greatest Gift ever given.
My friend Shara was short on money at Christmas and her writing friends had stressed “No presents” this year. So when she came to lunch with five packages wrapped in red foil and topped with lime green polka-dotted bows, we were really taken aback.
“You shouldn’t have. . .really,” Mary said.
“Just open it and you’ll understand.”
Inside Mary’s box was a clipping from the Levenger catalog, the consummate resource for people who love good fountain pens and lighting and other supplies for writers. On shiny paper was the picture of a pair of typewriter bookends, just the thing for Mary who was a secretary in the days when they really did use those things. The price read $98.00.
“They looked just like you,” Shara explained. “It’s what I would’ve sprung for if money wasn’t an issue.”
Jamie, our fix-it friend, received a clipping of a Bloomsbury bookbag stocked with tools (price: $58.00) and a Laplander lap desk ($48.00).
Chic Nancy got a buttery soft camel briefbag at a whopping $498.00. Nice leather, that briefbag. “I didn’t mean to show partiality,” Shara said, “but I just had to get it for you, after all you’ve done for Mother this year.”
Shara really got innovative with Susanne’s gift. She received a clipping of a leather lap desk that cost $158.00. “It’s great for reading in bed,” Shara told her. “The milk and cookies are coming later.”
My present was last and couldn’t have been more perfect. It was a soft black leather zipped briefolio. At $198.00, it was a quite a deal considering all the compartments and its slender size--ideal for someone like me with back pain. “It comes in other colors if you’d rather have something a little snazzier,” Shara said. “The main thing is, I didn’t want you lugging a heavy briefcase around.”
Shara had put considerable care into our pretend presents, and the five of us recipients left our lunch date feeling immensely cared for even though we held nothing tangible in our hands. I don’t know about the other four, but I’m taping the picture of my briefolio inside my Daytimer. Throughout the year when I need to feel what the art of giving is really about, I’ll take a good long look at it.
I just came from a luncheon at the VA hospital where I work and I had a blessed conversation with one of the volunteers. Miss Lottie Woody is the consummate giver, but her own Giving Life at our hospital began with deep sadness. While her husband was a patient in our hospital for 21 days, Miss Lottie began to envision all manner of ways she could be of help in such a place. On their 55th anniversary, as she touched their traditional anniversary pineapple sundae to her dying husband’s dry, cracked lips, she felt the Lord saying to her: These people here need Me, Lottie Precious. Come back and serve them in My name.
So when her dear husband passed away, she prayed the simple giving prayer, “Lord, use me.”
Miss Lottie told me that when she awakens in the morning, she prays that she will be exactly where God wants her to be, when He wants her to be there, and that she will touch who He would have her to touch.
That’ s been seven years ago, and the Lord has done just that. Miss Lottie makes rounds in our hospital, distributing Bibles and other inspirational literature (yeah! Guideposts) to veterans and their families. She also offers to pray with them.
Today, I learned that one of those prayers had an amazing outcome. “I’ve got to tell you something, Miss Lottie,” a patient told her. “The last time I was in the hospital, you prayed for my roommate who was having surgery. You asked God to watch over him and keep him in his care, and to tell the surgeons and all their helpers exactly what to do. And then you thanked God that the man had once asked Jesus to live in his heart and be his Savior.”
It all sounded so good to the man’s roommate, he decided that he wanted Jesus to live in his heart too.
And that’s just one example of how a 79 year old volunteer who prays, “Lord, use me,” became a blessing.
The Giving Life. It will change you, and everyone you encounter. Try it, won’t you?
