November was international writing month.
I had planned to take this month to finish a book i’ve been working on, but writing inspiration has somewhat eluded me. So many other issues, troubles and worries (health and financial) have occupied my mind. Even my blog posts has been almost non-existent, except for a couple of thoughts i shared on my poemdrawer blog. This morning however my thoughts have engaged on a couple of topics.
The first thought was about grace givers and grace takers, but i’ll expand on this a bit later..
Second thought trigger was a letter from a friend in the Ukraine i received this morning. A former employee is asking for a 300euro sponsorship to take a course. A few years ago this would have not been a question for me, but for the past couple of years i’ve been carefully dividing a small shoestring budget that’s been amazingly stretching and multiplying itself with little effort on my part. Even as i’ve been giving, sometimes sparingly and sometimes genreously, my resources have not really decreased during this time. It's like the story for the oil being poured from the jar.
The pastor preached about giving this past weekend. Funny, same topic in both churches i’ve attended (online in Colorado and offline in Canada). The Bible talks about abundant giving, giving above and beyond what we are able. This means more than our standard 10% tithe to the church or an occasional donation to a non-profit. It means giving the last of what you have and trusting God for the rest. Reminds me of 16 years ago when my finances were really dry. There were moments where i felt moved to give while i had little to give. And when i did give, some amazing doors of provision opened.
Today i’m refelcting on God's provision and pondering where i can or should give. After all this, I'm amazed that there's still oil in the jar...
