On Offerings (LONG)

Many years ago we were a young family. John had taken his first job after 2 years of a rigorous Masters program. Student loans were loaded upon us, and a new mortgage stretched out in front of us. The budget was tight, and we lived far from family. With two small children and another on the way I was asked by our bishop to teach early morning seminary. This involved my planning a 60-minute lesson to be given every school morning from 5.30-6.30 a.m. in our home. The topic-get this-was the Old Testament. I had two weeks to prepare.

John’s responsibilities were great and many. They included a very demanding job, which took hours beyond the 9-5 we seem to believe is the norm. He had himself been asked by our bishop to be a leader over the men in our ward, and many of those men spoke Spanish in their homes. Several of them had stopped bringing their families to church for one reason or another. Gathering these families ‘back to the fold’ was a calling that John took to heart. In the few hours he had away from the office he spent time in their homes (sometimes our family joined him, and the children and I would enjoy the hum of the Spanish language all around us-we being the only ones who had no idea what was being said!) He loved these families-we both did-and it was important he give them his time.

I had experienced a lot of resentment that John was away so much. Being a young mom of busy children and at the time in the condition of gestation, it was hard to handle the family alone. The dinner routine, the bedtime routine, the soccer mom routine, and the seminary teacher routine were wearing without my companion. This was not in the age of texting-and who could check email with climbing children in your lap? I heard from John infrequently. A cheerleader he is not.

‘Why does God take him from me so much?’ was my question on many a day. It doesn’t seem right that John should be gone from his family for work AND for church. I wanted him to be faithful and helpful, but I wanted him to be there to help ME. I wondered about it. I complained some. I cried more than I wish to admit.

Like I said, I was asked to teach the Old Testament to the teenagers. And I knew little about what I would find there. Moses, Daniel, Abraham and Noah were stories I could recount by heart. But doctrine and application for modern day motherhood? I never knew that was in the front of the bible. Altars and the offerings of lambs and fruits had never meant much to me.

One day when I was particularly worn and very frustrated at my lot, I silently knelt to complain. “Why do you need my husband right now, when I need him so much myself?”

‘You could make him an offering’. Was the quiet and clear reply.

The grandfathers of the gospel we believe in were asked to give God the best they had. They watched as those who were ordained to the task took their best, their most valuable things; prepare them and have them consumed before their eyes-gone from their grasp and view, and unable to make their lives better and easier….except that it made those men holy.

In the offering and all of its process, those patriarchs were giving what God wanted of them, and in the giving they were made strong. In the offering they were blessed beyond flocks and fruits-they were given power and cleansed from sin.

My husband’s time an offering? I had never thought it could be so. In the attitude of having him taken from me his service to God was my slavery. But in an attitude of making an offering of the time and the comfort he could give me, I found instead that God could make of me something more powerful and more able than before. God himself could become my cheerleader. And the time with John that I laid on the altar was the catalyst for this strength to enter me.

Dinner times were still lonely at times, but I found I was patient and compassionate towards the little lives I was responsible for. On evenings when I expected children to be upset that they missed their daddy, I found a peaceful spirit to be with them and with me. It didn’t make things easy to make my offering, but it made things easy enough that I could see God was near. And I appreciated the chance to give John to the Lord even though my love and longing for him was still real.

Best of all, I admit, was the way my own heart could melt with appreciation for the work John was trying to do. Not just the work in the church-but also the work of providing for us. The work of unburying our name from the bank roles of student debt, and the work of bringing us to a place of financial security that one day we would enjoy. It was easier for me to appreciate my part in all of it too. To get to be home with the children. To be supported and encouraged in my own role as the nurturing mom. These blessings became more apparent the day I chose to make an offering.

Today our lives are exponentially busier than ever before. I’ve found that resentment creeping back in. I’d forgotten that offerings weren’t made just one time. The patriarchs offered again and again. They offered in gratitude. They offered in sorrow. They offered as pleading for strength from the Lord. And its time for me to offer again. To offer not just John’s time, but my own. To offer a kind attitude on days when I feel unkind. To make offerings to plead for strength.

But I’m thankful that I can rely on the truth that offerings in my past made me strong. And I look forward with hope as I find what it is now that the Lord would have me put on His altar.