The Beggar

When I chose a name for my blog, I wanted to use “a beggar’s bowl”, but I discovered I needed to modify it because someone else had that name. I especially wanted to keep beggar in the title to emphasize the neediness and dependence of the one (me) lifting up the bowl.

I am not holding out my bowl and pleading with the giver. The giver is not stingy or mean or begrudging. He wants to provide what I need. I did not choose the beggar imagery to reflect on the character of the giver, but on the condition of the recipient.

Sometimes what fills the beggar’s bowl is tasty and abundant. Other times it is sour or hard to digest, prickly or bony. But if the beggar throws away the gift, he will be malnourished and weak. In his need, the unacceptable must become the acceptable. He does not have the luxury of sorting through what has been provided for his sustenance and growth and discarding what he deems unpalatable if he is to be filled and reach his full stature.

If I believe the giver (God) is good (and I do), then the items in the bowl should be received with thankfulness, even the hard-to-digest or unpalatable ones.

Ann Voskamp in her book 1000 Gifts talks of the hard “gifts”, the pain and suffering and loss universal to the human condition. These are the hard to swallow, the things that must be accepted as necessary though bitter. We could debate whether the donor directly provides them or simply allows them to fill our bowl, but He has made them part of our rations. They supply something needful for us to grow.

To truly accept, one must lift the bowl believing everything put in it has a purpose that will work together for good and God’s glory. Am I willing to receive it with that perspective? Sometimes I am, other times I want to cover the bowl with my hand and say no more spinach, God; more candy, please. There are indeed hard gifts.

Puttering

“Puttering is really a time to be alone, to dream and to get in touch with yourself … To putter is to discover.”

                                    Alexandra Stoddard

 

I like to putter. It connects me to my past, the present, and the future. I reminisce; I admire a lovely vase; I realize items I need or want for my home. Puttering is best in one’s own house, shed, garage, yard. It reminds me of my preferences, things I enjoy having around me. Unlike sorting, puttering has no clear-cut purpose. Perusing the contents of a drawer suggests new ways to use something or that something forgotten but desirable still exists. It makes known again all the “richness” in my life, even the mundane things like birthday candles or key rings.

Most people don’t putter enough. They are poorer for missing out on how full and good life is.

A Choice Morsel

When I walked down the block to the garage sale, I had a specific book in mind. The items being sold belonged to the man who married me almost 35 years ago. He and his wife had died within a month of each other and now some friends were holding this sale to help the surviving children who lived in other states empty out their parents’ residence.
Last September once we were settled in our new home, my husband and I made this same walk to visit with this couple we had not seen in 24 years. We took an album of candid photos taken at our wedding reception where she is reaching to take a nut from his plate while he obliviously is looking elsewhere. The topic of conversation turned to books (naturally). He mentioned that he had recently read a book which had made a deep impression on him, more than any other book in recent years. That book was The 3 Princes by Tom Julien, a retired missionary from France. I had hoped that book would be at the sale, but though there were lots of her books, his books had already been removed.
A little disappointed, I went home to change my clothes for a special lunch in honor of volunteers at my retirement community. As I was dressing, the phone rang. One of the maintenance/administrative staffmen wanted to donate a book to the library. Yes, it was the 3 Princes. The desired item dropped into my “bowl” by a loving God.

Inundated

Our retirement community library received over 100 large-print books from a lady who now has to use recorded books for her “reading” pleasure and can no longer peruse her books. Since the residents have been asking for more large-print books, God abundantly supplied. They anxiously hovered over the book truck of new acquisitions eager to read these gifts.

However, there was a problem. The existing large-print collection consisted of 3 shelves at the end of the regular-print books. There wasn’t room for even 6 more books, let alone 120. To make room, we had to aggressively weed the regular books, then shift over 2,000 volumes to free up an entire bookcase section. After labeling the new books, the Excel list of fiction (the only record of the inventory) needed to be edited, deleting the entries for the discarded books and typing in entries for the additions. Finally, after 2 very busy weeks, the treasured trove is being happily used.

I finished the whole project Wednesday morning. Wednesday afternoon we received 54 Christian paperbacks from the estate of a condo resident who died in February. I am taking the rest of this week off, but it looks like this blog will be neglected some more in the coming weeks. But at least the books will be read; the blog remains unread. I am too timid to let anybody know it even exists.

Hazy Lazy Day

I had time to walk over to the neighborhood pond around 7 p.m. Our balmy sunny day was turning into a cloudy, hazy evening.
                                                   

Empty

From the size and shape of the shimmery blue bottle, you might expect it holds perfume. Upon removing the stopper, you would find the bottle empty. You might be disappointed, but the Bible tells us of times when emptiness is a good thing.

In fact, it describes in Mark 14:3-9, a perfume jar being emptied as an act of love. A woman approached Jesus while he reclined at the table of Simon the Leper. She broke the alabaster jar and poured out expensive nard perfume on the head of Jesus. The other diners rebuked her for what they perceived as a wasteful act, but Jesus said she had done a beautiful thing and was preparing his body for burial. This demonstration of love occurred during the week leading up to his crucifixion, the Passion Week upon which we are currently focused.
Another empty item of that week was the tomb, the evidence of his resurrection. Without an empty tomb, we would have no hope of eternal life.
And the empty tomb could only come about because Jesus “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death.” (Philippians 2:6-8)
While we cannot fully comprehend what the Greek term kenosis (the emptying of himself, the making of himself nothing) means, we do know that it was a voluntary obedience to the Father’s will and plan. Jesus had to be born as a human being and die to bring salvation to mankind.

We also must be obedient to the will of our Heavenly Father, willing to give up what interferes with that plan.

 

Lift Your Empty Hands to Me

One by one he took them from me,
All the things I valued most,
Until I was empty-handed;
Every glittering toy was lost.
And I walked earth’s highway grieving,
In my rags and poverty,
Till I heard His voice inviting,
“Lift your empty hands to me.”

So I turned my hands toward heaven,
And He filled them with a store
Of His own transcendent riches,
Till they could contain no more,
Then at last I comprehended,
With my stupored mind and dull,
That God could not pour His riches
Into hands already full.

Martha Snell Nicholson
Letting go, no longer grasping to our idea of what is best, results in empty hands that God can fill with what He deems best.

Brimming With Flowers

My husband and I took a drive thru the country yesterday (Sunday) to Peabody Retirement Community to enjoy the flowering trees and tulips.