Birthdays...and giving

This week we had lots of birthday fun with our kids and the boys here. Emma decorated her cake with flowers that she picked with Daddy, and then we had movie night for her party. Her choice was a “Tom and Jerry” cartoon. Our “at home movie theatre” looks something like this: Thirty sweaty, sticky, hot bodies smooshed together in a non-air conditioned small room with everyone sitting on a cement floor, and all eyes on Jeff’s tiny laptop computer screen. And it's wonderful! There are lots of laughs and smiles, and no one complains. “Thank you, Mam,” they say as they leave when the movie finishes. (Can you see Emma's blond head in the middle?)

For Clay’s big day, he got to swim in the morning and afternoon and have birthday cake and glow sticks all around for his party that night. The thing that brought a lump in my throat and tears to my eyes was at Clay’s party.

The boys usually make cards for each other. That’s normal. When Ratan, Shubham and Sumit walked in carrying handmade envelopes, I wondered what was inside. Clay opened the envelopes to find three new matchbox cars. These are the same cars we gave the boys at Easter when they had worked so hard to memorize a passage in Philippians.

They gave the one and only matchbox car they had….cheerfully, with huge smiles on their faces. It made me think of what Erwin McManus said at church last year: “What if everyone gave?” Yes, what if everyone gave like these three little boys?

What if everyone gave like those in Exodus 35:29-36:7? “All the Israelite men and women who were willing brought to the Lord freewill offerings for all the work the Lord through Moses had commanded them to do…. And the people continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning. So all the skilled craftsmen …said to Moses, “The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the Lord commanded to be done…And so the people were restrained from bringing more, because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work.

What if we all gave like that…in our neighborhoods, churches, schools, workplaces, and communities? God, would You help us to be cheerful givers…like the three small boys who gave the one thing they had. I have so much to learn. I am humbled by their generosity.