It is entirely appropriate that the season for giving immediately follows a day of Thanksgiving. Grateful for all we have, we know that there are those whose needs are great. Giving is the most outward sign of a compassionate heart.
For me the journey toward faithful stewardship started on a warm summer day when I was 8 or 9 years old. I remember sliding my bicycle into the front yard of our small millhouse in Cramerton, North Carolina. It was August.
I had been riding up and down the hills of the town after fishing all day on the banks of the South Fork River. In an act of bravado that was strictly forbidden by my parents I had paddled across the shallow river in an old flat-bottom boat seeking my favorite fishing hole.