An amazing thing happened to me the week before Christmas. I stopped for coffee on my way to work. I pulled up to the window and the cashier wearing her cute Christmas apron handed me my order. She said, "The gentleman in front of you bought your coffee and said to tell you 'Merry Christmas.'" How could I do anything but smile! It also blessed her to be in the middle of such an act. A stranger whom I'll never know and expects absolutely nothing gave me a Christmas miracle. After all, any act of love is a miracle.
This is not the first time I've experienced something like this, but it surely hit the spot early that morning. That act of unconditional kindness did something in my heart. Not only did it distract me from my distractions by suddenly reverting me back to the reason we celebrate Christmas, but it put a glimmer of hope in my heart for mankind. What a gift!
It's in us to be givers. It's a God-trait. And since we were created in his image....well, you know.
Most of us are givers from way back. We shared our toys. We shared stories. And we've picked flowers. We've drawn pictures. We've found treasures in somebody's trash burn pile. All these things just to send a love token to someone. Little innocents know how to give. It is in us to do so. For me, somewhere along the line giving became less about who I was and became more about what was expected. I learned giving is just the "right" thing to do and those rules built walls around my belief about giving. "We give to this. We don't give to that." " This is an acceptable gift for this, but not for that." "If you don't give someone will starve." "If you don't give, you rob God." "If you give, you'll be blessed." (yucky.) You feel less when it's not good enough, or self-righteous when you follow the rules, or embarrassed because you over did it. You make a mental note that next time you must pay the tab because this time she did. The miracle disappears and what remains is something more processed... unnatural... humanistic. It's still nice to give, I guess, but definitely not as magical.
Then one day, I finally UN-learned those rules about giving. I began to realize what it means to give from God's perspective. Let me tell you, there are no boxes to his giving. No gift boxes! I love that Wayne tells our boys all the time, "God is an open-handed Father. He's not withholding anything from you." HE gives freely because he loves. As he is then so am I. But what does that mean for me exactly?
We've all heard of stories about people at the grocery store buying a birthday cake for a child who otherwise wouldn't have one. Or a sack full of groceries for a single mother just trying to make ends meet. All that is wonderful, but get this! My friend is a mother of three babes just like me. She was in line at the grocery store with her babes when she felt a desire to pay for the groceries of the party in front of her. This wasn't an instruction-from-the-Lord-Obedience exercise. She just felt she wanted to do it. It was some Frat guys who were buying food to go camping, but they didn't have enough money between them to pay for it. She said she didn't want to embarrass them so it took the desire rising up three times before she asked if she could. Of course they let her and were so thankful. That story rang some sort of bell inside of me that still knocks me off my rocker! A mother. A cart full of groceries. Three babies. And she did it because she WANTED to. Imagine that. And to receive that miracle was just as huge as giving it. Really its the same thing. I think about those college guys all the time wondering what that did inside of them. She had no ulterior motives, but I bet that ignited some sort of God-desire in them. They will probably grow up to be professionals who go around doing stuff like buying somebody's coffee at the drive-through window. So powerful what a miracle will do!
As I drank my coffee rolling down the highway, I was thinking about God's kind of giving....his miracles...all he gave because he loves. Did you know that sometimes, Jesus would heal somebody and not tell them who he was? Did you know that he would perform a miracle sometimes and ask them not to tell anyone? We always thought there was a motive...give the glory or whatever. Nope. Real giving is giving just because the fullness of love in us splashes out on random people. There is no guilt involved. There is no obligation. There are no rules. There's only just love and giving is fruit of resting in that love. It's beautiful to give and it's beautiful of people to allow us to do so too.
Dear gentleman in the pickup truck in front of me at the coffee shop,
Thank you for my cup of holiday cheer. The coffee was great too.
Audrey
