Cindy

For a season in my life, I was scraping money together by taking odd jobs, selling handmade crafts, and rescuing trash. That was back when you could set big trash items out at the curb any old time and the trash would be sure to take them. 

I had rooms in my house full of my finds. Stuff that I walked by with my dog, then went back to retrieve when my hands were free. Stuff that still had some life left in it or...as was the fad of the time...could be restored and repurposed. I had visions for what things could become, but I didn't have the funds for the materials to get them there, so I just picked up the trash and pitched the vision and hoped someone else would pick it up for a few dollars. 

At one point, I had this really neat set of solid wood end tables. Funny story - I picked up the one end table, thinking it was cute and seeing all of its potential, and then it was months, or maybe more than a year, before I stumbled upon the second one and realized it was a perfect match. (Matching end tables sell so much better than a single one.) 

I posted my set and waited. 

And waited. 

And waited. 

How could no one see the beauty in these that I saw? A matching set! In great condition! A little work, and they'd be spectacular. 

Then, Cindy sent me a message. "Do you still have the end tables? How much did you want for them?" 

$17, I told her. I still remember the exact amount. There was something I wanted to buy for my mom for $17, and it was important to me to find it. When I tell you that I was scraping by in that season, I mean it. She said we had a deal, and she would pick them up in a day or two. 

A day or two later, Cindy showed up on my porch, checkbook in hand, and wrote me a check for $34. 

No, no, I told her. That was $17 for the set, not for each table. I only needed $17. I immediately felt guilty for somehow miscommunicating and accidentally overpricing my items. ($34 felt like a LOT of money to me at the time. Even for solid wood.) 

She shrugged and said, "The check's already written." She tore it off and gave it to me. I kept protesting, and I'm not sure I even helped her carry the tables to her car at that point because I was busy arguing. She looked at me and said, very matter-of-factly, "It's all God's money anyway. We're just passing it around," then picked up a table and started walking away. 

I struggled with that for a long time. To be honest with you, I still struggle with that. I still feel like she overpaid me, even though my rational brain knows she got a good deal in the market of the day. 

But I have never forgotten those words she spoke. In fact, you might laugh if you knew how often I say them to myself in my own head. 

I'm in a better place financially now than I was in that season, and I have the opportunity to be generous. I have the opportunity to provide and to do things I wasn't sure back then I would ever be able to do. And as I consider how to be a good steward of what God has given me, I still have those words in my mind. They help me to decide what to do with my blessings. 

It's all God's; we're just passing it around. 

And so, I try to do my fair share of passing. Knowing that someone, somewhere may think they're taking advantage of me, but that's not the case at all. I'm giving freely from what was never mine in the first place.