The phone rang early on a Saturday morning — the only day we had the luxury of sleeping late because of our work schedules and Christmastime church activities.
I answered only to hear this gruff voice asking a series of questions before I could even answer the first. “What are y’all doing today? Are you going somewhere? Are you going to be at home for a while?”
Shocked by her rudeness and abrupt manner and still irritated by being awakened so early, I merely answered the last question. “Yes, we will be home for a while.”
“Okay, then. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” I thought she was coming to air her complaints about the church or about us. Pastors and wives are conditioned to expect the negative when a church member wants to come by. If I had thought for a minute that this crusty woman was coming to gift us, my sarcasm would have said, “Yes, when pigs fly.”
She arrived shortly thereafter. She wheeled the car around and backed up to the garage door. Steve and I went out to greet her,
‘Whole hog’
She hopped out of the car wearing men’s overalls and asked, “Them boys of yours around to help me unload this meat?” To our surprise, she had brought us a whole hog she had raised on her farm and slaughtered. “I knew it took a lot to feed them teenage boys of yours, and I wanted to do something for my pastor’s family.”
I admit, as an adult, I understand more fully the verse, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20: 36) than I did as a child. Receiving gifts from unexpected people tends to make me feel uncomfortable and unworthy. My dad had given me some good advice when my husband, Steve, entered the ministry: “Barbara, you need to learn to accept gifts gracefully. Sometimes people feel they have little to contribute to God’s work, and their gift to you is the only way they know.”
This experience reminded me of two things: Be careful about judging by outward appearance, and all good things come from the Lord, even if delivered by the unexpected.
“… Don’t judge by a man’s face or height, for this is not the one. I don’t make decisions the way you do! Men judge by outward appearance, but I look at a man’s thoughts and intentions” (1 Samuel 16:7).
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights …” (James 1:17).
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