Generosity. . .is an amazing, healing power. When you are generous — or someone shares with you — don’t up feel uplifted? Energized? Joyful? This article by counselor Lucy Ann Moll, which appeared first here on her website, shares an uplifting story of generosity.
Has a friend generously listened to you lately? Or given you a helping hand? Have you reached out to a friend or stranger this week?
Your generosity matters. It helps to heal the hurting. Here’s an uplifting story of generosity.
Homeless. Need Food. Please Help.
Pulling up to a red light, Kate noticed a young man clutching a sign. It read, “HOMELESS. NEED FOOD. PLEASE HELP.” The icy wind reddened his hands. She knew what she had to do, even though it inconvenienced her.
She drove to a store, bought men’s gloves and returned to the sign holder. She rolled down her window and handed them to him.
And she prayed for his mother.
Kate has a grown son too. Addicted to drugs. Sleeping somewhere. She couldn’t warm her own child but she could show Jesus to a stranger.
Debbie Macomber shares this true story in One Simple Act: Discovering the Power of Generosity. A sister in Christ and fiction author, she understands the need to give love. She’s dyslexic and her third grade teacher told her mother, “She’ll never do well in school.” And she didn’t.
But her parent’s encouragement, and later her husband’s, gave her the boost to sign up for a writers’ conference in New York, and — to use a cliche — the rest is history.
Finding Hope Through Generosity
This post isn’t about Debbie or Kate. It’s about you and overcoming your struggles in Jesus’ power. I want you to find hope and healing. One thing I learned:
Sometimes you find healing when you help a hurting soul.
Here’s an example: A woman I counseled by Skype — whom I’ll call Sandy — spied a lady dumpster-diving for food scraps behind a fast-food joint. She maneuvered her car from the drive-thru lane and into a parking spot. Sandy had bought two lunches, one for herself and one for the lady. She handed one bag of food to the lady, who quipped, “I don’t want your food. I don’t take no charity.”
Sandy put the bag of food just inside the dumpster and walked back to her car, glancing backward to see what the lady would do.
She took the food.
Now Sandy and the lady made a game of sorts. Sandy places food by the dumpster when she sees the lady and the lady eats. Sandy feels she is making a difference. She feels less alone.
Generosity Reveals Jesus to a Hurting World
This simple act of generosity reveals Jesus to a lady and to a hurting world.
You can show Jesus too, like Kate, like Sandy, like the little boy who gave his little lunch to a big Jesus who multiplied it and fed 5,000 men and probably as many women and children. The boy willingly gave what he had and received so much more.
‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?’ Jesus said, ‘Have the people sit down.’ Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. (John 6:9-10, NIV)
This boy’s generosity is forever told worldwide. How blessed he is.
When you and I are kind to others, we are blessed too.
The take-away:
Be generous. Show Jesus. Give thanks. You belong to Someone big who cares. Your generosity takes your eyes off yourself and on Him.
Do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. (Hebrews 13:16, NIV).
