Last week some very generous people from our church gave us a beautiful crib set, the kind that we’d only dream of purchasing ourselves but never would. It was an answer to prayer, a smile from God straight down upon us, the kind of moment that made me realize that not only was this baby not a mistake, she is purposeful in more ways than one. God is using her to teach Joey and I something about gratitude and humility.
Saying thank you is pretty easy, right? Someone gives you something, does a kind favor, treats you well, sheesh, even opens the door for you and the automatic polite response is “Thank you.” It’s proper, it’s expected, and sure, it is nice to hear someone say it. But how often do those words really capture just how grateful a person is?
For me, saying thank you can be difficult for a variety of reasons, really. For one, I usually forget to do it in a meaningful way. I’ll usually just say the obligatory “thank you,” fully intending to do something more, and then not following through with my plan. Why? Well, because I get busy and forget to write the thank you cards, or when I do remember them, everything that I can think of to say sounds trite and seems to defeat the whole purpose. But the truth is that my heart deeply feels the thanks that I am trying to express. Those words—thank you—sometimes don’t capture just how thankful I am. Like when these people gave us the crib set. Eeking out a thank you on the phone seemed like it wasn’t enough. Like it couldn’t possibly express to them how profoundly appreciated their generosity is in our lives.
Then there’s another reason why thank you can be difficult for me. Learning to live within the confines of a strict budget makes other people’s generosity all that much more meaningful. When I can’t pay for something on my own, or aren’t sure how I’ll pay for something on my own, I pray that the Lord will provide for whatever my need is (doesn’t everyone?) and I sit and wait to see what God will do. And when he does something, I’m never surprised (because that’s just who God is, right?), but I’m always taken aback at the way he does it. I’m always humbled, reminded that God sees my needs. All of them—even the needs that seem so small and insignificant. But not only does he see them, he knows my heart, too. He knows my desires.
By having this baby, we’ve set a ball in motion. Our family is started, and knowing that we want more than one child, we’ve been thinking about how we can borrow things from our generous friends without needing to go through the cycle of needing baby stuff the next time around (because of course, our friends could be needing their baby things back by then…). So we held off making a decision on whose “stuff” to borrow. We’d think we made a decision, but then we’d go back on it. It happened a few times. In the end, we decided that we really wanted to have our own baby furniture so that we didn’t have to worry about giving it back. We looked on Craigslist, we scoured sales, and we finally chose something we liked. It was dark wood, which we love, but simple and affordable. It was like the Kia or the Hyundai of the crib industry. Totally functional, but not what we’d have chosen had money not been an issue. Still, we were content with it and thankful we were able to get the money together to purchase it.
The day after we placed the order, I received a call from some people at our church who were moving out of state. They just happened to be going through their storage unit and stumbled upon their daughter’s nursery furniture. They wanted to just get rid of it, so they were curious if we wanted to take it off their hands. As the woman described it to me, my heart began to beat so hard I was convinced I was going to fall over. She described a dark wood sleigh bed-style crib with a matching changing table. These people aren’t the sort that need to spare any expense, so I knew it would be the Mercedes of the crib world—and they wanted to give it to us, free and clear.
Long story short, we cancelled our crib order and accepted their gift. There was a small part of me that felt a bit humbled, like “great, how wonderful to be that couple that needs to rely on the generosity of others to make ends meet…” but then that thought was washed away in a moment when I realized how God not only saw our need, but he saw our desires, too. A crib that is completely ours in the style that we loved. For free.
And that’s just one of the many times God has answered our prayers through the generosity of our friends lately. My best friend Christy stumbled upon a family who was selling infant girls’ clothes for .25 cents a piece—and she got us a big box full! She also gave us some other things from her own stash of baby gear and never thought twice about it. My friend Molly networked with some of her friends and put the word out that we’d be happy to inherit anything baby they were getting rid of, and a good friend of hers who I’ve never even met gave us a bag full of all sorts of things, from a changing table pad to bath towels.
How do I say thank you to these families? A thank you card seems trivial. A simple thank you over the phone is simply not enough. Expressing how I really feel takes more than that, doesn’t it? Saying thank you to the Lord is much easier for me, I think, because he knows my heart. I don’t have to say much at all for him to know how I feel. But making sure people know how God used them, that their perhaps seemingly small gesture was actually something very big and meaningful, that’s something that I want to make sure they understand. Not because I want to be known as someone who gives the best thank you’s, but because it’s important to me for people to know when and how God has used them. So often we go through life wanting God to use us to touch other people’s lives, but very rarely do we know when we actually are being used.
I’m learning that trusting God to provide usually means learning to graciously accept the kindness of others. Sometimes it’s humbling, sometimes it’s exciting, and sometimes (I admit) I don’t recognize it for what it is. In the end, though, I know that God is teaching me that he sees every need and every desire and is always faithful to me, just like he said he would be. It’s a gift to know people who have the heart and generosity of Jesus. My prayer is that I would have those things, too.
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