offering

Oh the end of the school year; it brings all kinds of nostalgia and excitement. As the year winds down, I’ve been talking with my girls about some memories and ‘how things were’ when we were in elementary school, you know… back in the dark ages :)

I can remember one school assembly so vividly, sitting cross-legged on the hard gymnasium floor, the air stale with the smell of dried sweat, my shorts awkward and uncomfortable, as most clothing was in the late 80’s. I also remember feeling very self-conscious and unsure of myself in that moment. We moved a few different times while I was growing up and it’s possible that this was shortly after a move, before I had found a group of friends to settle in with, before I had secured an identity for myself in a new context. There is this funny mix of feelings where I desperately wanted to be noticed, seen, known, but then I absolutely did not want the kind of attention that would single me out or call attention to how alone I was in that moment.

I would guess that most of you can remember a time when you felt alone and unsure of where you fit - maybe in childhood, but maybe as an adult as well. I have certainly continued to feel uncertain in groups as an adult, wanting to know the best way to be, or the right way to fit in with what is happening.

So much of our growing up experience is connected to defining who we are: what we care about, how we’re the same, how we’re different. And as adults, we learn inadvertently that much of our value and identity is tied to our capacity, or what it is that we can offer to those around us. I definitely still need to regularly work through the balance of a desire to be seen and known, but also to not be the centre of attention.

It is a repeated place where I need to take time to listen to what Jesus is saying. I need regular reminders to root my identity in him; to start from a place of knowing that I am fully loved, fully known, fully seen. And that my purpose and identity come from that place of being his child first, as opposed to the other way around. First we can just be; then we are invited to partner with God in the doing. It take work, time, energy, to undo the falsehoods that we accidentally learn in childhood; I picture myself on a hop-scotch path, starting, restarting, learning, and trying again to hold on to the truth as I go. And there’s no point pretending otherwise.
When we freely acknowledge where we’re starting from, it’s much easier to understand where we’re going.

Along this hop-scotch journey of learning, I have found tremendous encouragement and grace in the story of the widow’s offering found in Mark 12:41-44.

It’s a very short account:

Jesus sat down near the collection box in the Temple and watched as the crowds dropped in their money. Many rich people put in large amounts. Then a poor widow came and dropped in two small coins.

Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has given more than all the others who are making contributions. For they gave a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she had to live on.

In looking at this passage with my spiritual director, she asked me how I thought the widow felt: Was she ashamed of her offering? Trying to offer it unnoticed? Or was she perhaps proud of what she had to give? Aware that her choice was one of giant courage and commitment, despite the small monetary amount it entailed.

And now I regularly ask myself the same questions… how do I feel about what I have to offer to Jesus? Am I operating as a hesitant, embarrassed child, ashamed, and unsure that I have anything of value to offer to those around me? Or am I beginning from the truth that I can come with exactly what I have, hands open, freely giving it in to Jesus, trusting that he is pleased with my heart for him. In his grace, Jesus has been teaching my heart to jump ahead to the truths I’ve learned. To skip over hesitancy and fear, and to begin from a place of certainty in him.

How we view what we have to offer will determine how we offer it.

How we sit in our own skin will determine how we experience God’s love, and also how we are able to extend his heart to others.

Lovely ones, please hear and know that you are the beloved of God.
You are the beloved of God.

He sees you; he knows you; he loves you. This is a solid, unchanging truth that you can root your identity and purpose within.
It is the perfect starting point, for you can always jump back home to the security and safety found here.

You are free to engage with the world from the solid understanding that what you have to offer is good, and that you can give it to God proudly and confidently. God will take whatever we offer with our full hearts, small as it may seem, and he will do with it more than we can ask or imagine.

My prayer is that I will always choose to give to Jesus ‘everything I have to live on;’ every piece, every moment.
Praying that you can also trust yourself fully to God’s care and purposes. That you will choose to open your hands and offer whatever you have with expectancy. And that you will be surprised and delighted by the way God moves in and through you as you offer your real, beautiful, life to him xo