Baked Bread

Trudy's mom adored her. She longed for a daughter all her life. Before Trudy was born, she was diagnosed as having a blood disorder, and soon Mom had all the information she needed to take good care of her precious gift. When Trudy came along, Mom did everything in her power to provide for her. A cozy home, nutritious food, family parties, birthday celebrations, countless hugs...the works.

As a young girl Trudy required a massive medical intervention. Mom was there to give her blood and an organ transplant. Trudy received Mom's sacrifice with humility and thankfulness.

Under the continued watchful eye of Mom, Trudy flourished. The operation had been a success, and she grew into a healthy, beautiful, confident young woman. To celebrate a milestone birthday, Mom took her out on a special mother-daughter date.

“Trudy”, Mom began, “I love you. You're my special treasure—a true gift to me. I'm so proud of the woman you've become. I want you to remember, dear, how I provided for you throughout the years, as best I knew how, giving you everything you needed. Not many moms get to give their kids life twice like I have...first through birth, and again by giving you the blood and transplant you needed. I would do it again for you—I wouldn't change a thing. I love you so much!

That being said, darling, I have one request of you. I'm asking you to please, as often as you bake it, bring me some of your homemade bread. Doesn't matter what variety it is, but I want it on the day you bake it, fresh. I want you to honour me by following through with this.”

Trudy was puzzled by such a strange request, but knew it would bring her mom delight, so began the weekly endeavour with joy.

Time passed, and Trudy married and had kids of her own. Her Mom was in a care-home now, and Trudy's busy lifestyle didn't afford her as many visits with Mom as she might have liked. The weekly bread delivery had slowly peetered out. A few years back Mom had reminded her about it, but Trudy shrugged it off.

“It's not a good time now Mom. We work hard to pay for our family's needs, and there's just not much for extras. I make ten loaves a week now, and giving you one of them...well...I have four kids to feed and we have our neighbours over lots. Larry's been waiting for that raise for a long time now.”

The conversation niggled at Trudy, and once in a while she'd take over a few leftover slices, and occasionally managed a whole loaf.

What Trudy didn't know, was that for years, her Mom volunteered some of her time visiting sick children. Many were homeless, or lived with distant relatives, but they all enjoyed meeting together for some quiet play and building friendships. Their health problems were numerous and varied, the only common thread being that the diseases were incommunicable. Whenever Mom visited, she brought the bread if she had it, and the children were delighted. Some were new to the group, and didn't understand why the snack was inconsistent. Those who had been there the longest sadly remembered how much fun it was to get the fresh bread every week.

Mom watched some of the children grow and reach adulthood, and grieved those who succumbed to their illnesses. One of those who consistently enjoyed the bread in the early days, grew strong, and chose the life of a wheat farmer. His flour was known locally for it's quality, and could be found in nearly every local food store. Trudy wasn't aware that the flour she used to bake her bread, was milled by the gentleman her Mom helped nurse and love back to health. Health regained partly because of Trudy's early obedience to her mom's simple request.

We all have the same disease. It's deadly. And the only cure is a blood transplant. Jesus has already donated the blood, and offers it to us. We simply need to admit we have need for the blood, and the surgery is on!

And those of us who've got new life cuz of His sacrifice, understand that we are called to love Him and love others. One of the ways we do that, is by obedience to His requests of us, because we love Him and want to honour Him.

Everything we have is His. Trees, job, family, water, each and every breath. And He knows that one of the most difficult things to see as His, is the money we have worked to earn. It's our paycheck, rather than a gift and provision for us, from His hand. He asks that, to show our understanding of His ownership, and as a sign that we are thankful for His sacrifice and His supply of all our needs, we give back a tithe. A tenth. Of all our income.

In doing these money-blogs, and indeed in the whole budgeting arena, I'm more aware than ever of the world's view on tithing.  A prominent finance/debt reduction guru has a budget plan that indicates "giving" or "donations" are a flexible expense.  We believe it's a fixed one (helps that Dan's on salary I suppose :)  Others haven't really heard about tithing, and some have but don't understand it.

Some church denominations demand their members tithe. The elders will insist on seeing a family's income statement, figure out ten percent and if they don't pay it...well...they just pay it, or else! We (being Dan and I, and the Evangelical Free Church we attend) believe it's a personal decision between a redeemed soul and his or her Redeemer. No demanding, no coercion.  We encourage it, cuz it's a Biblical truth. And in our family, we live it. Not out of prideful arrogance, but because He wants us to. And we love and trust Him.

It would be so easy, in this whole get-outta-debt scenario, to take that chunk of tithe and pay down the debt faster. We'd knock our debt out in half the time! But ya know what? God didn't get us into debt, we did. So why should He take the fall for it? Why deprive third-world children of food and education in the meantime? How many “wheat farmers” wouldn't get their chance to change the world, cuz we withheld “fresh baked bread”? Why restrict the resources needed to take the Gospel around the globe, and help our local community, just cuz we ate out a few too many times and bought clothes we really didn't need. Sure, not all our debt is consumer-debt and some happened upon us out of circumstances beyond our control, but still...

Everything belongs to Jesus. We're merely showing that we believe it to be true. And we trust Him to meet our needs in the future.