It is more blessed to give than to receive.
Acts 20:35
Cyril used to have a family and a career, too. Well-educated, with a registered patent for an invention, he had never thought that one day he would find himself alone and advanced in age, ill, and poor. But these things do happen.
A woman with ADRA added him to the new year’s food help list. Cyril never imagined that he would receive more than a few packs of yogurt or a banitsa or bread. Cyril was stunned by the magnitude of the pack – more than little delights. He could not express his gratitude at the cardboard box with one whole turkey, pasta, cheese, yellow chesse (“I’d forgotten its taste”), sweets, lentils, rice, and dried fruit. But we were deeply impressed by the way he used the food. It’s true that poor people help other poor people. The one who is hungry and does not have anything knows best what it is like to be hungry and poor.
A few days after the new year, when the same woman met him, Cyril thanked her on behalf of another family. “You created so much joy!” he said. “I know a family who is very poor; they have great difficulty in making ends meet, but when I visit them, they always try to give me cooked food, for they know I don’t have electricity. Although the family lives in great destitution, they invited me to spend New Year’s Day with them. They had planned a dinner with meatballs and two steaks: one for their son who is a university student, now unemployed, and the other to cut into pieces and eat together. The Lord forgive me, but I lied that someone else had invited me because I didn’t want to sponge off of them since I didn’t have anything to bring. But when I got the food pack, I looked at the turkey and realized I couldn’t cook it on the gas plate I sometimes use for cooking. Besides, it’s a sin to eat a whole turkey alone when such good people don’t have a holiday meal. So I brought it to them together with half the cheese, and yellow cheese, and a very delicious sweet roll; they had given me two! Can you imagine their happiness? At first, they didn’t want to accept it. And then they eagerly insisted on my celebrating the holiday with them.”
“It is more blessed to give than to receive,” says today’s text, so that the satisfaction of the giver is greater than that of the receiver! Little delights lead to great gratitude to God, but also to the people whose hearts are open to the needs of those who cannot help themselves”
Altogether Lovely ©2014 by Review and Herald Publishing Association