by Craig McKellar
When you have ‘more than enough,’ it is a privilege and joy to be able to share with those who are struggling. But don’t you also love those stories of people giving out of their ‘lack’ and seeing God respond in ways that are deeply satisfying? Like the widow who has truly little but responds to God’s word to feed the prophet called Elijah (1 Kings 17:8-16) …Here’s one told by author Ann Voskamp:
The Story of Kristina
“Kristina, a single mom, flat broke, sleeping on the floor of her kids’ room and filling her fridge with food stamp groceries, said, “When you don’t know if you are good for the rent, it’s easy to get thinking that life isn’t good.”
When you are obsessed with your own despair, it’s easy to get depressed with your own life. Sometimes the only way to get out of your skin is to get into someone else’s story. Sometimes helping other people helps our own wounds. Sometimes the way out of your misery is to help someone else out of theirs. It’s strange how that works: volunteering can be a way to joy finding you voluntarily.
The secrets of the world work in upside-down, unlikely ways because the Maker of this world is unlike anything we have ever known. The Maker has this wildly warped and holy sense of humor. Every volunteer place rejected Kristina because no place wanted her kids coming with her. When no one wants you, it can be hard to want to be you.
But Kristina talked to herself-because we always need to talk to ourselves more than we listen to ourselves, because our soul needs a truth coach or it will be a lie factory: “Even if I feel like a complete loser, is there something tiny I am still good at?”
And she realized, I know how to cook a great meal-on very little money. So Kristina cooked up an idea. She emailed friends: “Every Wednesday night I’m feeding people.” Widows. The elderly. Singles. The lonely.
Everyone was important enough. She wouldn’t focus on what she couldn’t give but on what she could give and who she could give to. Her food stamps bought anything on sale, and with no recipes in hand, just the vision to make the greatest feast with the least amount of money, Kristina did it.
Sometimes the least in hand can make the greatest happiness in the heart. Because having much in hand doesn’t make as much in difference as having much in heart. When it looks like you have nothing to give naturally, look to God to give the supernatural.
When the lies came-Why would anyone show up at your place? Why would your friends bring anyone to you? -she ignored them. When you’re depressed, you can feel like you have nothing to bring to the table but a mess.
But Wednesday at 6 p.m., people came to her table. “Complete strangers, walking into my apartment and letting me feed them. By the end of the night, I had a ton of strangers with my tiny little budget, and my tiny little kids.”
When you give when you don’t have a lot, God gives you a lot more of Himself. When you give because you have claimed a stake in your Father’s abundant world, you get an abundant world of joy. When your giving and living debunks the myth of scarcity and embraces the mystery of abundance, you get the joy of intimacy-with God.