Today’s team journal was written by our Content Director, Jillian Vincent.
I’m dirt poor. Desperately lacking. Have no reserves left. There is no emergency fund. But this has nothing to do with my bank account. No, the poverty I feel is a poverty of energy, a poverty of time, and a poverty of patience. This is the poverty of a mother with 3 kids under 3, and one on the way. Yes, you read that correctly. We are expecting another baby in April! I think I’m excited, but I can’t tell where the excitement went. It is covered over by being tired, the feeling of chaos, and dirty underwear.
Every evening, I pass out on my bed after getting the last baby to sleep and wish I had more to give. There is a husband to love. There is laundry to do. There is a ministry to lead. There is a book to write. But I’ve got NOTHING. I am broke and feel broken as a result.
It is here that I read again the story of the Widow’s Mite. Tucked into just 4 verses in the great gospel of Luke, Jesus holds this woman up as an example to all as He teaches in the temple at Jerusalem. Here is the short account in Luke 21:1-4:
“Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
I never saw myself as the widow before. I am surrounded by my family! I’m far from alone, with babies hanging all over me, am I not? Yet, I turn my pockets empty at the things I used to do, the person I used to be. God, should not I quit everything if I have nothing to give? What kind of mother am I? What kind of wife? What kind of leader?
One who sees the abundance of Christ. I have but a mite, and it is gone by mid-day in this season, but what I have is from the Lord! Who I am to say it is not enough? So I’ve been praying this prayer lately:
Lord, I give it all, everything I have to you! Multiply my offerings! I am not enough, and I don’t have enough to give, but I have you! I trust you when you say “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10). I pray this abundant season would not be stolen from me but would be a season of wealth and gratitude.
What you are called to give is what you’ve been given.
A life lived with Christ is one that shares in HIS abundance, giving no longer out of OUR poverty, but out of HIS wealth. And praise the Lord, His energy does not run dry (Isaiah 40:28)! His time does not run out ( Psalm 90:2)! And His patience? He is much slower to anger than I have been or could ever be (Psalm 145:8).
When I was a child, my mother’s favorite song to sing to me was the old hymn “Give Thanks.” I am the fourth child, so it is not lost on me that my mother was all kinds of tired at that point, and giving still. But in her particular poverty, she sang these lyrics, “Give thanks, with a grateful heart. Give thanks, to the Holy One. Give thanks because He’s given Jesus Christ, His Son! And now, let the weak say I am strong! Let the poor say I am rich! Because of what the Lord has done, for us! Give thanks!” She had a mite, but she was rich indeed!
Sister, how are you feeling poor, empty, or lacking today? We are not called to be rich in any sort to live with and for Jesus. What you are called to give is what you’ve been given. God looks at your mite and calls it MIGHTY. We give great thanks for it, however small it is! Because Jesus, in His abundance, gave it to us! So thank you, Lord, for the abundance of your grace, and the abundance you bring to my life! Let the poor say I am rich, because of what you’ve done for me.
Jillian Vincent loves Jesus. She's a wife, mother of two boys and a Dayton enthusiast. Jillian currently is a stay at home mama and spends nap times writing and discipling other women. She would (almost) die for an avocado, a cup of coffee made by her husband, a novel that makes her cry, and a bouquet of sunflowers.