It’s often said, it’s better to give than to receive. Actually, it’s even biblical. Acts 20:35 says that the Lord Jesus Himself said these words that it is more blessed to give than to receive. I had to think about this when I fell into bed Friday night (July 7th) with an overflowing heart. In fact, overflowing seems like an inadequate explanation. My heart was bursting, it was bubbling over. When I woke up that morning, I had was thinking something along the lines of I think this might be a hard day. I’m not really sure how it will go… You see, it was my birthday. Something the kids had been looking forward to for days already. They weren’t going to let me forget it!
For the past months here, I feel as though I have been on the receiving end a lot. Daily, adults and children alike show me how much they care in various ways. That morning, we had a week closing assembly as we always do on Friday mornings. The message was about Psalm 113. Praise ye the LORD, bless His name for what He has given us. What do we have that we have not received from Him? When you start counting your blessings and think that even every breath comes from Him, how great are His mercies toward us. He has given me 29 years of life. That is only one reason to be thankful, but in those 29 years, are also so many more reasons! What a wonderful reminder on a day when I thought I would miss my family and friends a lot. So started a day of joy.
I knew I wanted to bake cupcakes for the kids. To me it seemed such a small thing to give them… but that also meant I had to bake. A LOT. I started baking Thursday evening and managed to get a few batches baked. I don’t often have challenges with electricity here but that night I did. It would flicker off, then come back on. Each time I had to restart my oven. Each time I was hoping it wouldn’t stay off the entire night and ruin the dozen cupcakes that were currently baking. Thankfully, it didn’t stay off for more than a few minutes at a time.
The next morning, I continued baking more. In the meantime, I made icing and starting frosting each cupcake. By that time, I think I had reached 100 cupcakes, though I didn’t count exactly. What was I going to do with them all. It meant drawing attention to my birthday, something I wasn’t sure I wanted to do. But I had cupcakes – which I knew people would enjoy. So, I took a deep breath, loaded some of them into containers and brought them to the office to share with my co-workers. Something this simple, started to fountain of joy. Giving, makes that biggest helping of joy and thankfulness pour right back on you. I didn’t feel particularly generous, yet people were sharing my day, people were rejoicing with me.
Words fail to explain, but let me say – my day was wonderful.
That evening we had planned to celebrate with the kids. They were so excited! July 6th, was also the birthday of one of the children so we celebrated together. We heard a short meditation from the pastor before the kids sang happy birthday to us in both English and Chichewa. I didn’t know, but it seems there is a tradition here to paint the birthday person’s face with frosting. We laughed, we sang and we celebrated with joy. And it humbled me once again, what excellent care God takes of His sinful creatures – beyond our understanding.
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