Giving

I surprised myself at how hard I found giving recently.

I came across the Darkness Interrupted  project through a friend's facebook post. This was a project to bring solar lamps to poor households in Indonesia. The benefits were multifold- this became a source of income and empowerment to the women; their children could use the lamps to read/study at night; solar lamps were much safer than the kerosene lamps; and this was much more sustainable both in terms of for the families as they did not have to keep buying kerosene, and for the earth as they no longer burned fossil fuels for light. I thought the initiative was simply brilliant.  

Solar lamps charging in the sun

It is one thing to declare how good I think an initiative is and how much I support it, but it is another thing to put my money where my mouth is.

When it came to opening my wallet to support the initiative, there was a struggle within. Questions arose in my head, like whether the money will b used well, how sustainable was it really,  and I even thought about all the things I could buy for myself with that money. In the end I did give and I'm sure the money will be used well and help improve the life of at least one woman and her family. But the internal struggle both surprised and disappointed me. It was a clear alarm bell for me about how much value I put on material things.

Giving is an art that I'm learning. Not just monetarily, but to give my time, effort, skill, and heart.

If everything I have comes from the Lord, who am I to try and hold anything back?

at 11:59 AM