I think one of the most beneficial things we can do is to give to others. Why is it beneficial? Because it switches our focus from what we don't have to what we do have. Often we get caught up in the feeling that we lack abundance. Giving switches that focus of 'not enough' to 'more than enough'. That said, I know that there have been times in our life when giving financially was asking way too much of our over stretched funds. We never let that stop our giving.
So how did we do it?
I've shared before that our finances were terribly tight in the early days of our family relationship. John and I were both starting out fresh with nothing but two mediocre salaries, five kids and a lot of needs. Our grocery budget was tight, too. $40 for a family of 7 with two in disposable diapers (a necessity for nursery and school), baby formula because WIC never supplied quite enough and toiletries and such that a family require...Well that $40 was starting to look depleted long before the food portions of our budget went into the shopping cart. I can remember leaning over the meat counter, sick to my stomach, wondering how on earth I could buy 2 pounds of ground beef or a whole chicken...That was to be our meat for the week.
But my children had other ideas.
My children have said they never knew how poor we were and I guess that's about the greatest compliment they could pay us. In their eyes, even if we were eating bean burgers, or using a pound of meat to make four meals for us all, the foods were plentiful and they never went hungry. They had no idea of the agony I suffered at times trying to figure out how I could feed three teens, two adults, a child, and an infant 16 meals a week on less than $40 during the school year (hooray for school lunch programs!) and 21 meals during holidays and summer. I think it's very telling that quite often during those days, we often crammed anywhere from 2 to 6 extra people at that table at least twice a week, too. I look back and am truly astonished that we not only fed our family but guests.
So we stretched our budgeted allowance for the family and for guests but my children wanted very much to help those who didn't have enough...And how could I look at them and say "Help others?! WE don't have enough!", when they so obviously felt we had an abundance in their eyes?
What do you do? My children were very aware at that time that the local Department of Family and Children Services took boxes of food to needy families for holiday meals. John and I worked at a nursing home and hospital (and later both at the hospital) and we were gifted a turkey and a ham each year for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I might have planned those meats as bonuses to our budget but my children asked quite rightly if we couldn't give one of those big meats to a needy family. We discussed it and agreed. It was a reasonable solution. But that wasn't quite all they had in mind. "Why not give a whole meal, Mama? What's a turkey without stuffing or sweet potatoes or cranberry sauce?" Well that was truth and we had extra items in the cupboard so those children happily began to fill a box with the items needed to make up a holiday meal.
'You have two bags of coffee, Mama...Can't we give one to the family? And what about this extra bag of cornmeal?" So it went. Soon the box had been swapped for a larger one out of necessity. We had a filled box to deliver to DFCS. I will never forget the look on their faces as we dropped off that box. Nor will I ever forget the conversation around our Thanksgiving table two days later as they compared their enjoyment of their meal to what they felt sure the recipient family was also experiencing. It was then they began to plan the box they wanted to give at Christmas.
This time they gave me a list of what they'd like to include and so each pay week I added an item or two to our shopping cart, purposing those things for the Christmas box. Again their faces as we took that box to DFCS to deliver made it seem worthwhile. But it didn't slow them down a bit. No those children continually stretched us to give just a bit more. The next thing I knew we'd agreed to cut our grocery budget by $2 a week so they could sponsor a hungry child each month. Often they came to us with a handful of change and said "Add this in, too." Then they wanted to give a box of food for Easter, even though there were no Turkeys or Hams free from work for that holiday.
The next Thanksgiving they not only planned the donation boxes but they asked to donate a gift to the angel tree sponsored by the local hospital. They agreed they'd happily take a little less for themselves if a child who might not have a gift could receive one. That was the year we reduced their stockings from a small gift orgy to the rather simplified ones they came to love best: an orange or tangerine, a favorite bar of candy, package of gum, a giant peppermint stick, packets of cocoa or fancy coffee (which were $1 at that time).
And the next year one gift was not quite enough. This time they asked that we sponsor one child who corresponded to their age. We purchased five gifts to put on the angel tree. Their own gift stack didn't seem to look so much smaller but it was.
In summer, as we prepped the kids to go back to school and we tried to determine how to stretch what they had with what was needed (ever budget over 4 pay periods for ONE pair of shoes when five are needed?), as we tried on jackets and checked over book bags we all became acutely aware that despite our struggles there were children who were going back to school without any school supplies, without a backpack, or having no jacket for those cold mornings. It was then we decided to sponsor a child from an orphanage in a nearby town. How could we stretch even more? Loose change came to play here. It's surprising how much change we can accumulate in a day, much less a month. It was enough to make a decent donation over two months. Our children really challenged us hard to look at how we could GIVE even when we felt such deep need in our own lives.
It was during this time that John and I began to stretch our budget to tithe. Tithing is not giving but it can feel like it just at first. Tithing is actually giving to God a small portion of all that he gives to us. We couldn't stretch to the full 10% tithe just at first but we found eventually we could and so we did. And then we stretched ourselves further to give offerings. It was our children's belief that we had an abundance that changed our own vision of what we had. It was their idea that we had more than enough to share that made us aware that indeed we had something we could give, to man and to God. They taught us to look at what we had differently. To be joyful in our giving and as generous as we could be when we gave. I'm so glad that we were willing to learn what they had to teach us!
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