A gift with interest

It is now about a year since the tsunami devastated the world, both physically and emotionally. Appeals for help and prayer were urgent.

I knew I could not shake my responsibility to give. However, I felt somewhat reluctant to help. It was just after Christmas and my credit cards were severely challenged because of Christmas expenditures and donations elsewhere.

Plus, I thought, my small contribution wouldn’t amount to much in the face of such a colossal tragedy. Why not ask more affluent people? Why not challenge nations in close proximity to assume the responsibility of assisting their stricken neighbours? Why not rely on governments and large corporations? Why ask for my small help?

But then there was that great miracle worker of Galilee, who centuries ago fed more than 5,000 people with just two fish and five loaves. Could Jesus not perform miracles today? I wasn’t quite certain, but I gave my $200 (the price of two fish does inflate over the centuries!) and left my gift in the Lord’s hands.

Then I put the incident out of my mind and went about my business, doing what many old widows do, puttering around the house and singing “Amazing Grace” off tune (always off tune!).

A week later I went to the evening service at church. An old acquaintance, who had bought my house about 10 years ago but was still sometimes re-routing stray mail, said, “Go look in your church mailbox.”

“Oh,” I teased, “you always leave cheques in my mailbox!”

“No, no,” he replied. “Go and look.”

In my mailbox, there was a strange letter from a liquidating company. This firm was handling the remainder of a trust company that had been dissolved and with which I had conducted some business transactions many years ago. In my mind, everything had been settled to my benefit and I had completely forgotten about it.

This was a “final settlement,” the writers claimed. The cheque enclosed was for slightly more than $200 – $224.73 to be exact.

“The tsunami money with interest,” I gasped. Had God really given a nod to my small, seemingly inconsequential gift?

My skeptical mind said it was just a coincidence. However, my trusting soul differed and believed that God had seen, honoured and multiplied my small donation. Now I could give to some other needy cause.

“To see the hand of God when you least expect it,” one preacher said, “constitutes a miracle.”

This was a miracle.

Olga Regehr attends McIvor Ave. MB Church, Winnipeg.