Have you ever found yourself embarrassed or overwhelmed by a generous gift someone has given you or by the time and effort someone else has expended on your behalf? Realising how much someone else has put themselves out for us can be a humbling experience, don’t you think? Yet it can also be heart-warming and life-giving when we are able to accept such a gift with grace and truly receive the love the giver wants to convey to us.
I can remember quite a few moments in my life when someone did something amazing for me. On one occasion, I wanted to attend a particular three week prayer training course, but the several hundred dollars required to do so was too much for us. Imagine my shock when a young woman at our church told me she felt God wanted her to pay for me to attend. At first, I was reluctant to accept such a generous offer, but she insisted. In the end, I accepted—and that course turned out to be vital for me in so many ways.
Then there was the time when I was tired and unwell but still needed to keep going as part of our church ministry team. One day, I arrived home to find a big box on our doorstep. When I investigated, I found about a dozen containers with casserole meals in them, all neatly labelled—but with no name or clue as to the giver. What a wonderful, anonymous, sacrificial gift!
Then last week, I received another wonderful surprise. I had been asked to speak at a women’s event in a new church in western Sydney. As I finished my input, my friend who had invited me stood up to thank me. Then she opened a large bag, took out a beautiful quilt she had made and held it up.
‘I just whipped this up for Jo-Anne!’ she blithely told us, as she presented it to me.
What an understatement! Even I, with my limited knowledge of such things, could imagine how many hours of fabric choosing, arranging, sewing and neatening had gone into making such a precious gift, not to mention the cost. I was gobsmacked. My friend had previously told me about the quilt and that she thought God might want me to have it, but I had forgotten about it. And I certainly did not expect her to hand it over that afternoon.
Immediately, my mind went to the account in Matthew 26 of a woman pouring an alabaster jar of expensive perfume over Jesus’ head. The disciples complained that the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. But Jesus said to them:
Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. (7)
Now I am not Jesus. And I was not being prepared for my burial, as Jesus was. Yet, as I received my quilt, I felt my friend had also done a beautiful thing to me. I was moved to tears—I felt humbled and privileged, as if Jesus himself was blessing me with this gift.
So … what resources have you been given to express God’s amazing love to others? Could God perhaps be challenging you to ‘whip up’ a beautiful thing for someone else?
I have also been greatly Blessed Jo-Anne by the kindness of others, some gifts have left me speechless too. One was also a quilt given to me when we moved to Queensland from Sydney, all the ladies in the craft Group each sewed a personal Loving and uplifting message for me on patches on the quilt that I have often read with tears of joy but sadness too that in the flesh we are so far apart but knowing in my heart we are joined by The Holy Spirit in Christ Jesus gives me Joy and also Hope of Eternal togetherness.
What I do for others is often not planned, it’s spontaneous of their need but I do enjoy cooking and I’m known as the Christmas cook because I give treats all year and this gives me joy too because being kind to others is being kind to Jesus, how very blessed are we when we have the opportunity to do so.
Christian Love and Blessings – Anne.
Your quilt sounds beautiful, Anne–what a lovely gift to remember your friends here in Sydney! My husband was given one too when he finished a ministry at one church, made by each of the home groups there. It has little houses all over it, with the names of the people in each home group on some of them. And how lovely to be known as the ‘Christmas cook’! So true too that, by being kind to others we are ministering to Jesus as well. God bless!