Sunday, July 19, 2009

keeping it in perspective

this morning before church i was doing some browsing on the Internet (for wedding stuff, of course) and decided that i would really love to have these custom napkins for our 'social hour' at the wedding:

so when Brad picked me up for church this morning i shared my idea with him on the way there, and told him how much money we've been saving on everything by doing things ourselves and how i really, really wanted this one little splurge for the wedding. he wasn't sold on the idea and we walked into church with me being a big grouch because we couldn't have napkins with our initials on them.

we get inside and sit down and i'm browsing through the program and notice that there's a baby shower for a woman in our church...but it's not just any woman. Her name is Candace, and in February her 32-year-old husband was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer - and they had just found out they were pregnant with twins. Through his illness, their commitment to the Lord and their firm belief that God is always good was such an encouragement to our community. Sadly, he passed away in April, and her baby girls were born in June. Candace is now the sole provider for her family of 4, and needless to say, she's in dire, dire need of all the support she can get. And that's the job of the church....which is me.

In that moment, I didn't care about having my custom napkins. It was absolutely worth it to give her the money we would spend on those things that would be thrown out 10 minutes after they were used.

This isn't at all about how we 'did a good deed', but rather, about how easy it is to lose sight of the important things when our lives are consumed by things like a wedding. And I never want to get so sucked into something that the superficial overcomes the meaningful....and the lasting.

4 comments:

Annie said...

well said. we had a similar thing happen in church yesterday, and i thought how can i be complaining so much because i can't afford (insert item here), when there are so many people who have much more difficult circumstances?

Catherine Kousma Photography said...

Wow. I will definitely be praying for that woman and her children. I can't even imagine trying to raise my kids without Will.

God has great timing when it comes to giving us perspective.

Minnesota Girl said...

I agree---well said.

Carri said...

that's really good...i needed to read that today :)