March 20, 2010
Extravagant Generosity Day 30
Think of a particular time you enjoyed giving money. What made the experience delightful, memorable, and meaningful?
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Jim & Sandi Linaberger said,
March 23, 2010 at 6:40 am
Our home church in Pittsburgh used the 5 week “Cultivating Fruitfulness” series several years ago and we thoroughly enjoyed it; especially the practice of “Extravagant Generosity”.
Over my 70+ years I, like many of us, had been generous [but not extravagant] with my time. In the early years of my marriage and business career that’s about all I had to give: clean-up work Saturdays, singing in the choir, teaching bible classes, board of deacons, elder on session, chair of 2 pastoral search committees [a time - 27 years -when my family belonged to a Presbyterian congregation]. It was fun and I enjoyed giving my time.
But times changed. Our 3 daughters were grown and gone and we moved to a new suburban community, joined a large/active United Methodist church and quietly slipped into the “back pew” of the sanctuary [retiring from active participation and the generosity of our time].
Then I retired early. Life was good; or so we thought. Something was missing. We slowly resumed some of our former time activities, especially choir. But we also realized that we now had the financial independence we’d worked so hard for.
And thus began a new chapter in our generosity, giving of our financial resources. We enjoyed watching younger members assuming leadership positions and contributing of their time while we also quietly enjoyed giving of our financial resources. The “well” of our generosity never seemed to run dry.
I lost my wife/partner of almost 42 years. Then I met Sandi; we fell in love and have been married for almost 6 years. One of the blessings of this new marriage/relationship is that she also shares the desire to stive for extravagant generosity. Life is good again.