This is the time of year when dad would start to ask, So how we doin’ for your mom?
We meant me.
It started years ago when he would ask me to buy a few stocking stuffers for mom. Pretty soon I was buying the whole stocking. Then it was the stocking and a big chunk of the gifts. All with his money.
Because the man lived in a town of 7,000 people in Wyoming, with shopping as scarce as the population.
I got in a habit of shopping all year long, tucking away treasures in the crawl space month after month. In summer I would take dad one large Rubbermaid of gifts when we would go to visit. Then closer to Christmas I would deliver another.
From a craft fair I would call and say, So I found some adorable gifts for mom here. How much is okay to spend?
He would never give me a limit—just would tell me to buy it.
It made me hyperventilate sometimes.
Dad. Give me a limit. Come on, I would say.
If you think she would like it, just buy it, he would say.
I would send him the amount, and he would put a check in the mail the second I told him how much the damage was.
Eventually I got so comfortable with this routine that a lot of times I wouldn’t even look at the price of an item. No lie. I would just think, Mom has got to have this, and I would go buy it and look at the receipt when I got home.
Lots of times I even bragged to sales people.
I do all my dad’s Christmas shopping for my mom, so I don’t really care how much it costs. He pays for all of it. We would laugh at my audacity, but do you know what the sales ladies would do?
Sigh.
Because how sweet was it that the man wouldn’t put a spending limit on his wife for Christmas, and doubly special that his little girl was part of the fun.
Now just this last week a single mom at church was doing a spaghetti fund raiser. This was to help her daughter get funds to go on a trip so she can share the love of Christ with people overseas for several months.
The mom was overwhelmed by the generosity of our church family at the spaghetti dinner.
Well, that’s great, I said. And we’ll just trust the Lord to provide the rest. He has unlimited resources that He can move around at will.
My words to her came from a heart that for years has experienced no spending limit, from a father who can’t seem to spend enough to show how much he loves.
It changes your perspective when you learn to live on someone else’s resources.
And when those resources don’t have a cap.
And when there is great expectation to keep using said resources.
What are you praying about today? And I’m not just talking about money needs, although that might be it. What do you need from the Lord?
These are Jesus’ very own words about how we should pray to the Father:
…because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need (Luke 11:8, NIV)
Ask for what you need like it’s not your pocket that holds the supply.
Christy Fitzwater is the author of A Study of Psalm 25: Seven Actions to Take When Life Gets Hard. She is a blogger, pastor’s wife and mom of two teenagers and resides in Montana.
