What If I Give All?

 

           There’s a song by Ray Boltz called, “What If I Give All?” The chorus goes like this:

What if I give all I have?
What will that gift do?
My child, a gift like that
Could change the world
It could feed a multitude
He didn’t close his eyes
Or turn away
I can see him standing tall
He saw the need
And I can hear him say
What if I give all

The song is about a little boy in church, who after listening to the pastor talk about hungry children gave all the money he had to feed them. It compares this child to the one in the Bible who gave his fish and loaves of bread to Jesus. I love this song. I sang it in church with my brother, Devon, one time.

I was skyping with my youngest brother, Riley, one day. Riley just turned five years old. This is him with the dum-dums I left him for his birthday. J

 

He plunged himself in front of the camera and said, “Kayla! Did you get my money?”

“Your what?” I didn’t hear him.

“My money? Did you get my money?”

I looked at mom. She told him it hadn’t gotten there yet and sent him away. She then explained to me what had happened the day before. They had watched Riley go to the mailbox. They saw him come back empty handed. Mom waited for him to go inside before checking to see what he had put in the mailbox. She pulled out an envelope, heavy with a lot of change. Without letting on that she had removed it, she asked Riley what the envelope was for. He told her it was all the money he had, and it was for all the poor people in Ethiopia. Mom counted it later. It was just over five dollars mostly in change. Every time I skyped with my family that month, Riley would come flying over to the computer. “Did you give my money to the poor people yet?”

To be perfectly honest, I kept forgetting. I am surrounded by poor people. They don’t exactly stand out to me around here. But one day I was on my way home from Korah. I stumbled out of the nine seater taxi with twenty-three people in it, tripped on my flip-flop, and regained composure. Sitting toothless on the corner under a faded umbrella was my old friend, Workaye, the beggar. I wrote about meeting her in a previous blog. (She’s the one who spit in my hand.) When I saw her I remembered the five dollars I had not yet given out. “Workaye!” I called to her. She looked with delight into my face and asked me where I’d been. I told her I’d been busy, etc… I sat down next to her on the sidewalk, and we continued our conversation. People stopped on the road, grabbed friends, and stood there observing our interaction and eavesdropping on the conversation. “Workaye, I have four brothers. The youngest one’s name is Riley…” I told her about Riley, his trip to the mailbox, and what he intended for his five dollars. She listened intently as my gringo Amharic lurched out of my mouth, and by God’s grace understood.

“One hundred birr is about five dollars. And I have here,” I finished, “The one hundred birr from Riley that I was instructed to give to someone. I want to give it to you.”

She kind of stared at it for a minute. And then gratefully took it out of my hand. I don’t know if Workaye had ever held a hundred birr in her hand before. It was precious. She bowed low to the ground. She thanked me, she blessed me, she blessed Riley, she blessed my family, she blessed my cow (not really), and starting at my hand kissed the length of my arm. There was no spitting this time. J Just a lot of blessings.

What if I give all? What a concept. Who does that? Not many of us! Why is it always the ones with so little who are willing to give everything? That widow in the Bible did! (Mark 12:41-44) She gave all she had and it wasn’t much! Earthly wealth has such a hold on us. It’s amazing how we put our faith and our sweat into such perishable things like silver and gold. How very difficult it is to let it go. But, what if we gave all? My baby brother, Riley, did. What if you did? What if we all did?

What if I did? What if I gave all?