Act 32 - Anon

Are we any good at performing acts of generosity from which there will be zero reward? Is part of what feels good knowing other people will think well of us? Churches are full of plaques, plates and engravings which tell us which individuals donated the money to pay for beautiful windows, the new font, the organ restoration etc.
Are we really ok with only God knowing what we've done? There's so many issues Jesus wasn't clear on, but charity isn't one of them:

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

(Matthew 6:3–4 NIV)

Act 8 - Dirty cash

Financially the end of Feb is usually our lowest point. After Christmas we have 4 major birthdays in January, plus my nursing registration fees to pay. Even so every Lent we set up a jar in the hallway and all of us - even the kids - put in it whatever we can. The children decide what charity to give it to.
It's a very small thing in terms of stewardship but it's a start, and all things must start somewhere.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. (I Timothy 6:10 NIV)

Be more encouraging/Live more simply

Two in one blog as I forgot on Saturday! It is really hard work to write the blog when I've worked a 14 hour day, and not achieved the task! I do have a box of stuff to take to the charity shop, so hopefully I can get it there this week. I'm always trying and failing to declutter, but I suspect most of our clutter would be of little use to anyone else.
Today's task was to be more encouraging. It's the first day of the Easter hols for us and I let the kids have a onesie day whilst I tidied up, so not much opportunity for encouragement. It's also the first day of Holy Week and to mark this at St Michael's we had a Tenebrae service.
At this service candles are slowly extinguished so the service ends in near darkness apart from the paschal candle. I was reading at the service (& extinguishing candles!) and Faith decided she wanted to come- I try to encourage her with services that are different to what she's used to. She did a fab job of welcoming- for which Vicki and I gave her praise and encouragement. It was an incredibly moving service.
As far as Jacob was concerned today I tried to encourage him to eat his evening meal. I was not successful!

Be More Giving

Today has been so full- there's been so much to do and so much to think about.
Today's action was to set aside a jar for loose change to donate to charity and the kids decided they want to give the money to cancer research. As I work in oncology I was really pleased with their choice.

The Bible passage on today's LLLL page is all about the wedding at Cana and the overwhelming generosity God displayed. It's a reminder that there's ways I can be generous that don't involve money. A phrase I've heard, don't particularly like, but feel applies to me is "time poor". With my work, family and ordination training I have to choose really carefully how I'm going to spend my time and something always gets neglected.
On Sunday, whilst working a 13 1/2 hour shift at work, I found out my children had been asked to dress up for World Book Day- which is today. I had a mild panic knowing that between Sunday and today I was only not in work on Monday morning, but needed to shop then. How on earth was I going to sort costumes?! Things like this happen all the time and I can often feel that I'm not giving my children enough of my time. They did, thankfully, mainly sort their own costumes (with a bit of help from dad) and I sent a panda and Emmet the Lego guy happily to school.

Later on years 3, 4, 5 and 6 from the school joined us in church for a teaching Eucharist service where I preached about LLLL and each child was given a prayer card based on it's principles.
Tonight I was back in college after the half term break, where I was reminded that I'm not the only one struggling with time.

So how on earth do I give more of the thing I haven't got? I want to give more time to my family and my friends but I don't have it to offer them. I don't have an answer to this but as part of my challenge I can think about how I'm spending my time and what my priorities are.

John 2.9-10: When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’