What Suffering Taught Me About Generosity

The running figure sped closer, round the curve of the athletics track.

I stretched out my hand behind me, palm facing upwards. Jogging on the spot, I fixed my eyes straight ahead.

Thud. The baton was in my waiting hand.

My fingers curled around it, and I began to run.

The headteacher handed me a certificate: ‘Achievement in English Literature.’

The conductor raised his hand. Eyes on him, I lifted my flute to my lips. His hand beat time and the orchestra began to play.

The stethoscope-wearing figure stood.

He held up his hand, pointing to the ceiling, and asked me to reach out and touch his finger.

I missed.

I dropped the baton.

I was diagnosed, at 16, with NF2-SWN, a condition which causes tumours to grow on nerves anywhere in my body. My 17th birthday was spent on a life-support machine in Intensive Care, following brain surgery. Subsequent prolific surgeries over the years have left me, among other things, deaf; unable to walk without limping, crutches and fatigue; with one side of my face paralysed; vision impaired.

In the early days – and not so early - I’d look at my life and wonder, who is this person, masquerading as me? And why aren’t they letting the me inside out, the me who can run and make music and smile and hear?

And so ‘former me’ and ‘masquerading me’ co-existed, one longing to escape the trappings of the other, constant tension between what should have been and what was.

And then, one day, as I was lying on a bed being wheeled to theatre, asking God to let me die, He told me to let go.

Let go of the future I planned but would never be - my old hopes and dreams for my life - and, in doing so, reach for the future He knows.

“Be generous.

To yourself.”

Pass the baton on.

‘…let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us…’

(Hebrews 12:1)

In a relay race, if one person runs the entire distance, the team will not win. Part of the race is about passing the baton on.

Part of my life-race has been about learning to pass the baton on to myself.

As surgeries erode my abilities, hopes and aspirations, I have learned and am learning, to let each ‘me’ be part of my race.

To be generous enough to myself to pass the baton on to where I am.

I have learned to say, ‘well done’ where I am.

You, who used to run cross-country, managed to take two steps? Well done.

I have found a God who is with me where I am. When where I am is the last place I’d choose to be, He says, but because it’s where you are, it’s where I choose to be.

Such generosity overwhelms me. That He would look at the mess that is often my life, that is me, roll up His sleeves and wade through the pain and tears and struggles with me.

I have discovered that there is generosity in receiving.

When I woke up after the surgery which took all my hearing, I was terrified by silence. Silence which, like a transparent wall, cut me off from the world, preventing the sounds I could see were there from reaching me. Everyone but me on the opposite side of the wall.

My side was not nice, and so I decided that no one else need be affected by it. God and I were on my side, everyone else could just get on with their happy, hearing, healthy lives. And there we stayed, God and I; me determined not to make things difficult for other people, God – I now realise – patiently waiting for me to see the verse He wanted to show me.

'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'

(Acts 20:35)

And finally it dawned on me. By refusing to receive, I was denying others the ‘more-blessing’ of giving.

The realisation stopped me in my tracks.

I knew the blessing in giving; it was a lynchpin of my childhood.

Modelled by my parents, a joy-full home with an open door to all.

Did I want to be someone who stopped others from being blessed? No.

Could I believe that other people would be blessed by giving to me? No.

But do I believe that Scripture is true? Yes.

What if I tried it out?

What if, next time someone offered me a lift, or offered to carry my bag, or whatever it may be, I squashed the, “It’s ok thank you, I’m fine (for ‘fine’, read ‘struggling’)” already on my lips before they got their words out, and swapped it for, “That would be lovely, thank you.”

So I began, more and more, to see that it’s true: people are blessed when they give.

When I thank them for giving to me, very often they reply, ‘it’s my pleasure’ and, as I look in their eyes, I see sincerity and I see joy.

By choosing to receive, we open a door of opportunity for others to give.

Because we open that door, others are blessed through their giving.

And so we, the receivers, become givers.

We, too, are ‘more-blessed’.

And the wheel of generosity continues to turn.

“Be generous.

To yourself.”

I have learned that being generous to myself means trusting myself to God.

‘Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey’

I wholeheartedly sang these lyrics frequently as I grew up. I trusted God with my happy, harmonious days.

And then the Conductor changed key.

Chords began to jar and clash. I didn’t like them. I wanted to go back to how things were.

Why couldn’t we keep making nice music in my life?

Trust and obey…

He is God, I’m not.

The Conductor carried on. I played to His tune, the tune I didn’t understand or like or enjoy, but, if I didn’t follow it, what else would I do?

It was – and is – hard, playing my life in a different key. I don’t know the rules. I don’t know the tempo. I don’t know when tumours, and hospitals, and disability will strike. I don’t know the plan. The music is sight-reading now, I don’t get it in advance.

I don’t know very much, really, but, as I fix my eyes on God in my unknowing, I’m reminded that I know the One who knows.

Ironically, my catchphrase in life, from very small, has been ‘What’s the plan?’ I like to know what’s happening.

But I am learning to recognise the generosity of a God who says, “You don’t need to know the plan yet, but I promise I’ll meet you there when you do.”

He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

(2 Corinthians 12:9)

First published 2020 by Make every gift count. | Stewardship