The Generosity of Strawberries

I’m not going to lie. I was feeling anything but generous when I sat down to read through today’s devotional. It had been a long, exhausting day full of never-ending demands from my two small children. Finally, they were otherwise occupied downstairs, so I sat down with a cup of tea and read through the first paragraph. As if on cue, my 2 year old daughter came up the stairs and made a bee line for me. Most days I’m fine with interruptions, but on others, I wonder if someone stole my sweet children and replaced them with little serenity-seeking-terrorists. This was one of those days. When I told her I needed some space because I was reading about Jesus, she literally snatched the book from beside me and sat down to read it for herself. My first instinct was to reproach her (which I did), but then I became intrigued by her voracious appetite for God. She flipped the pages, finding little treasures within the tiny pictures. “STRAWBERRIES!!!” she exclaimed. It was as if she had opened up a love note from Jesus himself, as evidenced by a lovely drawing of her very favorite fruit.

Generosity. The big picture of generosity would be an evidence of God’s love for us spilling out all over those around us in a CRAZY BIG way. But, what isn’t mentioned is the little picture -- the stretching and minor exercises (of our emotions) that must take place before, during, and after our generous heart births a gift for another human who is loved by God. Today, I choose to stretch my heart by handing God one more fragmented piece of my selfishness. I chose generosity in a little way by handing over my one moment of serenity to my daughter. What I was surprised at was the immensity of joy that poured back into my heart as my selfishness budged enough to make room for God’s inflowing. Because I chose to practice generosity...even in the tiniest of ways...I was able to catch a glimpse of a raw and undiluted moment of worship from one spirit to her cherished Heavenly Father. It was simple and yet so extremely challenging to me. Generosity begets generosity, and the minor stretching and daily exercising of this gift lead us down an ever widening path where God has the chance to call us to a level of giving bigger and bigger gifts (and therefore a bigger experience of His love).

My daughter’s attention span quickly moved on. As I finished the devotional and spent time soaking up my God’s words of challenge and love, I found myself flipping through the book until I found the little picture of the strawberry. I smiled at the simple ways that God is generous back. I would have missed this little love note, had generosity not opened up my heart. Little did my daughter know, strawberries are my favorite fruit, too.

 

picture found here