A Real Basket Case

“Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” 2 Corinthians 9:7


I’m a real basket case today. Not so much in the figurative sense of the saying, but in the literal. Yesterday, my son’s first grade teacher asked me to come up with an Easter basket idea for the class. The egg hunt is Friday. I must have made a face because she said, “You have FOUR days!”

Granted, I am the crafty, party, crazy mom of the class and there is very little that I cannot accomplish with packing tape and paper. Still, it took me one night’s sleep to come up with a grocery bag Easter basket that would be perfect to hold their six eggs apiece.

There was one problem – grocery sacks.

I shop at a grocery store where you have a choice between paper or plastic and I always go for paper. I like the way my groceries don’t flop all over my trunk on the way home and those sacks come in darn handy. I’ve made vests, wrapping paper, and decorations out of those things. I save them for my 83-year-old neighbor who uses them as trash bags since he burns most of his trash in a barrel. I most generally have a stack of the things at least a foot high. Not yesterday. I had gotten over ambitious and taken them to the library recycling dumpster along with the newspapers. I had 8.

I called my neighbor – he still had a few, but not the 17 that I needed to make 25.

Plan B – return to the library dumpster at darkness to retrieve my paper sacks. Nope. Dumpster haul off occurs on Tuesdays at the library, so I would be out of luck tonight, not to mention the possibility of having our finest men in blue wonder what I was doing dumpster diving in the recycling bin.

So on to plan C – swallow my pride and ask for a handout in the name of a good cause from the grocery store where I spend thousands each year.

And guess what? They were happy to oblige.

That got me thinking: A lot of us have a need of some sort or the other that could be filled by others if we would only ask. The media would have us believe that no one ever helps anyone out anymore, or if they do, it is on a grand scale like giving away their business or their house or something. The truth is that most of us have more than we need of something and would gladly give it to someone who needs it and would put it to good use.

The truth is our pride gets in the way of asking someone to fulfill one of our needs. I like to say, “I have no pride,” because I seem to be in the habit of embarrassing myself on a regular basis, but the truth is, I would almost rather die than ask for help! And I don’t think I’m alone. There are a lot of you out there wishing you had help right now. Your basket needs filling – whether it is with eggs, love, or just some alone time. And that voice in your head says, “Maybe I should just ask.”

Well, maybe you should!

Or maybe that voice in your head is saying, “Maybe I should offer.”

Maybe you should do that, too!

In fact, maybe if we all did a little more asking and offering, everyone would be better off! We are all in this life together, after all.

(Just don’t tell my uncle that I posted this, as he’ll somehow tie it to the healthcare bill and swear I’m a socialist. I’m just a sharer, I hope!)

“They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.” Luke 9:17