With spring and Easter just around the corner, it’s easy for one to appreciate the myriad of new growth opportunities that are blossoming all around us, and that, despite any impending sacrifice or challenge that may await us down our path, we are buttressed by the assured promise of revival and redemption that ultimately awaits us. For it is from the sacrifice of winter that the abundance of spring arises.
This week’s Inspiration adapted from a tale from the Brother’s Grimm, beautifully illustrates what giving (sacrifice) begets:
A little girl once lived all alone with her old grandmother in a tiny house located just on the border of a dense forest. They were so poor that they were scarcely able to buy food to eat or clothes to cover them.
“Don’t you worry, Granny,” the little girl would tell her, “Someday soon I will become big enough to work, and then I will earn so much that I will be able to buy everything that we need, and to give something to other poor folk as well.”
One day, the child went off into the forest to gather sticks. These she hoped to sell for a few pennies in the town over beyond the hill. She was to be gone most of the day, so she took with her a bit of bread, which was all they had left to eat.
It was winter, and the air was bitterly cold. The child wrapped her little shawl tightly about her and ran on as fast as she could. She was hungry, but she intended to save her crust until the sticks she sought were gathered.
Just as she reached the edge of the forest, she met a boy, even smaller than she herself, and he was crying bitterly.
Having a tender heart, the little girls stopped and asked the child why he was weeping? “I am weeping, he answered, “because I am hungry.”
“Have you had nothing to eat today?” she asked.
“I have had nothing, and I am starving for I do not know where to go to get any food.”
The little girl sighed. “You are probably hungrier than I am,” she said, and she took the crust from her pocket and gave it to the boy. Then she hurried on.
A little further into the forest, she met another child who was even more miserable looking than the first, for this child seemed almost frozen with cold. Her clothing hung about her in rags, and her skin looked blue through the rents.
“Ah,” she cried, “if I had a warm little dress like yours! Help me, I pray you, or I will certainly die from the cold.”
The good little girl was filled with pity. “It is not right,” thought she, “that I should have both a dress and a shawl. I will give one of them to this poor child.”
So, she took off her dress and gave it to the child, and then wrapped the shawl closely about her shoulders. In spite of the shawl, she felt very cold. Still, she was near the place where the sticks were to be found, and as soon as she had gathered them, she would run home again.
She hastened on, but when she reached the place where the sticks were, she came upon an old woman already there gathering up the fallen wood. The old woman was so bent and poor and miserable looking that the little girl’s heart ached for her.
“Oh, oh!” groaned the old woman. “How my poor bones do ache. If I but had a shawl to wrap about my shoulders, I would not suffer so.”
The child thought of her own grandmother and of how she sometimes suffered, and she had pity on the old woman.
“Here,” she said, “take my shawl,” and slipping it from her shoulders, she gave it to the old woman.
And now she stood there in the forest with her arms and shoulders bare, and with nothing on but her flimsy shift. The sharp wind blew about her, but she was not cold. She had eaten nothing, but she was not hungry. She was fed and warm by her own kindness.
She gathered her sticks and started home again. It was growing dark, and the stars shown through the bare branches of the trees. Suddenly, an old man appeared beside her. “Give me your sticks,” said he, “for my hearth is cold, and I am too old to gather wood for myself.”
The little girl sighed. If she gave him the sticks she would have to stop to gather more. Still, she could not refuse him. “Take them,” she said, “in heaven’s name.”
No sooner had she said this than she saw it was not an old man who stood before her, but a shining angel.
“You have fed the hungry,” said the angel, “you have clothed the naked, and you have given help to those that asked it. You shall not go unrewarded. See!
At once a light shone around the child and it seemed to her that all the stars of heaven were falling through the bare branches of the trees, but these stars were diamonds and rubies and other precious stones. They lay thick upon the ground. “Gather these together,” said the angel, “ for they are yours.”
Wondering, the child gathered them together—all that she could carry in the skirt of her little shift.
When she looked about her again the angel was gone, but the child hastened home with her treasure. It was enough to make her and her old grandmother rich. From then on, they lacked for nothing. They were not only able to have all they wished for, but to give to many who were poor. So, they were not only rich, but beloved by all that knew them.
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, “Come you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me. Matthew, 26:31-36
Have an AWE-full Weekend!
William “Bill” Bacque