Anonymous Giving

during the holiday season i was able to participate two events of anonymous giving.

no 1.
along with several members of my church community i help cook dinner for and worship with another church, for the mentally ill, once a month. the members of this church tend to live in some crappy housing and for the most part have very little money. our church and a couple of other churches adopted a combined total of 127 members of this church for Christmas. each of the members filled out a red card that listed some items that they would like for Christmas. i chose a card for an man that is 55 years old. he requested some cologne, jeans, & shoes. i honored his request and tossed in a belt and a pair of shirts too. the man i adopted doesn't know that i adopted him, and i like it that way. he might want to know who did because i had another man asking who adopted him because he wanted to thank them for their generosity. if i was in their shoes i think i would want to know who bought me gifts, but i'm not in their shoes. i'm in my shoes and i get a lot of joy out of giving to people anonymously. as unselfish as anonymous gift giving can be i must say that there is a part of me that does it out of selfishness. it feels good to make others happy and part of my desire to help others is to feel good. i believe the root of sin is selfishness, but not all selfishness begets sin. i also believe that the biggest blessing one can receive is the blessing from blessing others.

no 2.
i have a friend who relies on a small monthly check from the government to support himself. shortly after cashing his check that he received on the 3rd of december he lost his wallet and his entire check for the month. i've helped this friend financially many times in the past, but this time i didn't have the funds to help him overcome his dilemma. fortunately a couple of other people where able to help him with getting food and paying a couple of important bills. despite the loss of his money he was more concerned about how he was going to get a Christmas present for his nephew than how he was going to pay his bills. he asked me if i would ask my friends, some of which he knows, if they would help come up with $100 to buy his nephew a gift card to American Eagle. i was more than happy to do this because i've met his nephew a few times and he is a good kid, 14 years old, who doesn't have much at all. he doesn't even have a bedroom. he has to sleeps on a bed in the living room of the rundown house he, his mom, and her boyfriend live in. his couldn't afford to get him a present for Christmas and she asked me if i knew of someone who could spare a computer because her son really wanted a computer. fortunate for her my boss had given me an older Apple eMac a few months ago and i had been holding on to it for just a circumstance. back to the gift card. i emailed several of my friends and a few of them responded saying that they could help raise money for the gift card. a week went buy and i had raised $60 towards the gift card and had accepted the fact that i had only been able to come up with $60. then a friend sent me an email asking me if he could send me money via paypal. he proceeded to send $50 without me even telling him that i was $40 short of my $100 goal. i give God 100% credit for that. because of the anonymous generousity of others a deserving 14 year old by recieved a $110 gift card and a computer for Christmas.