Unexpected Lessons

Acts 20:35 are the words of Jesus saying, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."  The obvious truth here is that God wants us to be gracious and liberal givers.  A sad perversion of this truth however, is to assume that there is no blessing or grace associated with receiving.  Both Sarah and I have found this painfully wrong.  Not to brag, but I think Sarah and I find the giving side of things pretty easy.  We actually enjoy seeing needs and lending a hand to people when they're in need of something we can help with.  But turn the tables and it's another story.  When it comes to giving grace, we're in our comfort zone.  When it comes to receiving it ............. not so much.
I wonder why this is?  Why is it so hard to let other people do things for us?  Is it pride saying, "we should be doing this for ourselves"?  Is it out-of-control independence?  Is it an occupational hazard?  Whatever it is - God is choosing to address it in the Hanlon family.

Once that truck pulled out of our driveway it was like the mission field finally became a reality for us.  We were really going.  The alternative was to assume we just spent $9000 to donate all our furniture and clothes to Africa.  The clock that had been inaudible up till then due to full time jobs, search committees, preaching schedules, etc.... was now ticking loud and clear in our heads and we knew we were only weeks away from saying goodbye to things and then, to people. At first our "goodbyes" were to insignificant things like piles of old magazines and extra cans of paint.  Then it got a little more personal with our yard sale and Grace's much-loved swing set.  Then it got downright painful with my 9-year bud Rudy.  Then, last week, we said "goodbye" to our house as our friend from church moved in.

And that's when it started.  We were furniture-less, bed-less, dog-less, and finally, home-less - and we were either going to have to learn how to receive from other people or ask our church Elders if they wouldn't mind us sleeping in the youth group room.  Of course this didn't take us by surprise.  People had been asking for months if they could help with "this" or with "that".  We had to learn the grace of receiving from others as they sought to make our final days here ones that would be comfortable and even fun.  Our close friends, Brian and Allison Vance (joyfully captured to the left) set up a weekend excursion with  us on Cape Cod for the extended Memorial Day holiday.  Our wonderful friends Nate and Naomi Dishington opened up their home for us to move in for the entire month of June. It came in the form of a surprise gift from loved ones for us to get away as a family overnight when tensions were high. Iris Joho and Pha Skinner made themselves available to watch our kids while we packed and even at times just so Sarah and I could get a night "off".  Each of these things (and many more) came pouring in faster than we could ever imagine and we were forced to learn the grace of receiving. 
I think sometimes that it's the unexpected lessons that can mean the most.  The ones where you weren't on the lookout for a "growth area" to creep up on you.  Receiving grace from other people is new territory for us and we're far from being "experts" at it.  Our instinct is to try and "pay people back" or "even the score" somehow.  But what that ends up doing is robbing the gift from being what it was intended to be ........ grace.  Unmerited, undeserved, and unexpected.  Thank God for grace.