Such as I have give I thee… —ACTS 3:6
When I was a girl, I earned extra money by helping my neighbor Alice with her household chores. All year long there was a table in her living room that was never to be disturbed; it held her gifts in progress.
What impressed me most was the way Alice tailored her gifts to the recipients. For a friend who was a sewing teacher, Alice wrapped a book on making doll clothes in gingham fabric. She used a yellow measuring tape in lieu of ribbon and a fat tomato pincushion for the bow.
Years later, when Alice moved to a nursing home a hundred miles away, what troubled me most was the thought that her wonderful gifts would stop. Her home had been sold to pay for her medical expenses, so she had no money of her own. But to my astonishment, when I arrived in Alice’s tiny room on Christmas Eve, gaily wrapped packages were piled high on her bedside table and at the foot of her bed.
Alice couldn’t wait for me to open my gift. She’d cushioned a rose-patterned cup and saucer with a square of clean gauze and packed it in a box that had once held latex gloves. The piece de resistance was a bow she’d crafted from the twill tape the nurses used to secure her tracheotomy tube.
“Where did you ever find this exquisite china?” I asked. I turned it over, looking for clues to its origin. “Oh my goodness, it’s antique Limoges!”
Alice’s face lit up. “Won it at bingo,” she said. “I’ve hooked up with one of the evening nurses, honey. She never fails to pick a winning card.”
As it turned out, all the Christmas gifts Alice had won were donated by local people. Alice had recycled them and put her personal stamp on each one. And she taught me something I would forever carry with me: A generous heart will find a way to give . . . always.
Dear Lord, teach me to give wherever life takes me.
