Freely Given … Freely Give
posted on September 30th, 2009 / by Babs Coppedge / 9 CommentsOn a Friday morning, just over a week ago, I woke up in my new home two days earlier than I had anticipated. The ‘Fios Guy’ was coming and we had moved enough of our things to allow the kids and I to sleep over. The alarm clock was set for 7:30 but my eyes opened at 7:15 and I decided I’d rather get up on my own than to wait for that sound.
I slipped out of the playroom where the kids were still asleep, made my way into my kitchen and kicked myself for bringing the coffee maker but forgetting the coffee. I guess my brain and body were so tired the night before that even when I made a quick trip to the grocery store for essentials I forgot the one ingredient that is necessary when making coffee … COFFEE!
I shuffled to my laundry area, sat down and took on the task of sorting mounds of dirty laundry that had piled up over the past week, neglected by six days on end of packing and moving and cleaning, and packing and moving and cleaning ad nauseum. Since I had to be at the new house all day, I figured I might as well make good use of my time and fill my family’s closets with clean clothes.
With the first load in, I looked out my kitchen window and noticed that a light rain was falling. I poured myself a cup of orange juice – pretending it was hot, black and smelled like Starbucks – grabbed my Bible and my laptop and headed out to my back porch swing to meet with Jesus.
The day prior, Anthony and I had received word that his brother and family [all seven of them] were relocating for work from San Antonio to Dallas in just a few days. Great news! The catch? They hadn’t found a home yet but needed to move, so they made plans to stay with Anthony’s mom for the time being. The bigger catch? Mom lives alone in a tiny two-bedroom home in Dallas that is decorated with all kinds of beautiful things and has only one bed. Anthony’s brother and wife are the proud parents of five – yes five – boys all under the age of ten, with the youngest being only nine months old.
Instantly, we knew that we had to open our home; the home we weren’t officially moving into until the weekend. The younger Coppedge’s [that’s what I call his brother and family] were due to arrive Monday or Tuesday and I went into instant panic mode with only one thought on my mind, “We won’t even be close to being moved in, and we’re going to host seven people in a house of disarray? There’s no way!”
Let me give you a quick bit of back-story. When Anthony first brought me to look at this home in Keller, I was amazed. We were being evicted from our home in Bedford due to foreclosure and he brings me to a see a home that’s bigger than the one we live in plus it sits on an acre of wooded property and has a fenced-in saltwater pool. There’s no way we could afford this. But, another family from our church had moved to Tennessee, couldn’t sell the home because of the market and was now looking to bless a family “in need”. We turned out to be that family.
I called my best friend, Coli, and asked her and her husband to come look at the house. Her words to us as she walked through were, “With this much room, expect the opportunity for people to stay with you.” I just smirked and brushed it off.
Fast-forwarding back to my morning with a fake cup of Joe, I found myself sitting on my swing contemplating that very prospect in the backyard of the house we had yet to fully move into. I have to be honest here and tell y’all that I was not happy about having to find a way to make our home ready for seven guests when we’d barely have enough time to make a couple rooms ready for us to live in. I was frustrated. I was irritated. I was asking God “why”. I even jokingly said to Anthony, “This is all Coli’s fault for speaking those words over our home when she was here.” How could we be asked to open our home for people to live in, at this point ‘indefinitely’, when we hadn’t even moved in ourselves? My list of “To Do’s” was so long that I didn’t think I’d have time to come up for air in the looming week, let alone entertain a whole other family. Didn’t God know that I already had planned out my next seven days so that I could be unpacked and moved-in – and in record time? Surely He had to see the list that was taking up residence in my brain waiting for check marks to be placed in the imagineered boxes.
As I sat under my back porch, looking out over the expanse of my new, tree-lined backyard with the pool in the distance and thanking God for the incredible home He had provided, I opened my Bible to the book of Proverbs, chapter 11. Reading through, I came upon these two verses and was stopped dead in my tracks.
One man gives freely, yet gains even more;
another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.
A generous man will prosper;
he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.
~ Proverbs 11:24-25
Oh! An arrow shot straight to the heart. And then God’s ‘little reminding voice’ immediately followed up with, “To whom much is given, much is required” [Luke 12:48]. Oh! A double-tipped arrow. But this arrow was not marked with condemnation, it was covered in grace, for His next words to me were, “Is getting your house unpacked more important that providing a home for a family in need? Did you not stand in this very living room with your family the other night and ask for this house to be used for My purposes? Will you not use this home to be a blessing for others in the same manner that the family who owns this home has been a blessing for you?”
Again, no condemnation, just some simple statements spoken with the intent of putting my heart back on the right track. I hung my heart and confessed my selfish desires to Jesus and was immediately flooded by his love and overwhelmingly presence. The grace of God is so incredible at times that it makes me see just how small my heart is against the size of His.
As it turns out, the younger Coppedge’s only stayed with us for one night/morning because God blessed them with an incredible home they found the day before driving up. I don’t think He ever intended for us to take in another family ‘indefinitely’ because His timing is never accidental. I believe He just wanted to know if our prayer to use this home for His purposes was sincere and if we truly understood that whatever we own – or rent – belongs to Him anyway.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,
and comes down from the Father of lights,
with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
~ James 1: 17
As I walk through my house now, a week after moving in, I’m excited for the ways that this home will accomplish God’s purposes and for the opportunities He will bring us to use this home to bless others the same way we’ve been blessed!
I am SO happy your voice is the one I woke up to this morning! I miss you! (Even though I just spent the whole day with you, haha.)
“I hung my heart…” N-e-v-e-r have I heard a better expression for the humility you displayed, and continue to display, in turning everything of ‘yours’ over to God. I want to affirm this in you. This WILLING submission!! It’s a beautiful thing my beautiful friend.
Your home might never be the home to anyone for an extended time. But I have a feeling it will be a home to many, none-the-less. It was a home to the Coppedge’s for one night. It was a home to a dog for one afternoon. It is a home to Grandma right now. It will be a weekend home to junior highers in a few months. And that’s just what has been revealed in a week’s time! So get ready. Not in the, really?? way. But in the way that you see your prayers of a dedicated home answered.
P.S. Don’t forget I am moving in when I get back from Africa. haha
wow- really love this. I can’t tell you how many times this type of situation has arrived, and I like to tell God my ‘preferences’, my time frame, my schedule. Yada yada…And I know God is up there like..”Ok, just let me know when you’re ready to do ‘My’ will and then watch out because they come with more blessings than your little schedule can ever carry!” Although I know this, sometimes my little heart wants to be selfish too. Anyhow, thank you for sharing your heart and being so honest. Really enjoyed this!
I loved your blog today. Oh, how many times I’ve been there … sometimes it took me longer to “hear God” than it it should have. So many times I’ve given things up to Him (my house, my car, etc.) only to take them back … yet all he really wants is true surrender and obedience.
Like your friend, Coli, said, I’ve never heard/read “I hung my heart…” before. It’s such a beautiful expression of humbling yourself before the Lord. [Side note: Would it be OK if I steal that expression?
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Thanks, again for sharing this.
What I love about this blog is the journey I’ve been blessed to go on with you that arrives at this place. First you captured my heart with your ability to find God in His creation all around you, then you brought me before His throne responding to the question, “Can we be real?” … where you share the story of walking through losing your house to foreclosure holding hands with the Lord, and now seeing His faithfulness in providing you an even more spacious place as He asks you to give what has been freely given. It’s so HIM! Thank you for letting us be apart of the journey with backstage passes as we allow God to bring similar questions before our hearts! I have been moved to deeper places with God as I allow Him to do the necessary heart tweaking. Let it be Lord! Tweak away!
Love you Babs!
Great Love ~ Ris
It never ceases to amaze me how when God is doing something in me He reminds me of it wherever I go. He has been talking to me about being generous and these scriptures along with your personal journey has expanded my faith in God in this area of my life. SO awesome!! Btw, I really enjoyed our time together yesterday.
I hesitated before posting this comment to the blog entry from my bride, Babs, because my thoughts are personal. But there are two things that are important to share with the ladies who are just getting to know my bride…
First, Babs really is this ultra-transparent. This is how she’s lived life since we met and it’s one of the most amazing qualities about her that I find both inspirational and refreshing.
Second, the amount of baggage she’s overcome from her first horror-story of a marriage – and the baggage I’ve unwittingly dumped on her from my own past – is significant. She had learned to become more independent, more in charge and more self-reliant due to her past. To watch the Lord ask her again and again and again to give up, surrender and die to herself and SEE HER DO IT again and again and again shows me that a heart changed and devoted to God will overcome anything we drag along with us. Babs is a work in progress that almost always fights the initial change, but makes the hard decision to make the change sooner or later.
My bride is an example of a woman willing to be renewed and remade in the shape the Father always had planned for her anyway. Like the other women on this authentic blog, my bride is truly coming into bloom, and I am simultaneously humbled and proud of her.
Anthony
Babs, I love your transparency in this. It challenges me to look for what I am holding onto that God is saying, “You need to share that.” It’s so sweet to see how God gave you a home that is beyond what you imagined in the midst of a foreclosure. He is so merciful. I also love it that your husband commented with affirmation of who you are! I enjoy your blogs.
It’s amazing how many opportunities God gives us to give to others, even when we don’t feel like we have much to offer or that it’s just not “convenient.” We often ask for blessings in the midst of our own situation, and when God meets the need, do we remember to thank Him? Do we ask how we can then bless someone else? It’s something to thing about. God has blessed us recently and until right now, I haven’t though about just how we should be blessing others through it as well.
I appreciate you mentioning that you didn’t hear condemnation from God, but grace instead. He is such a loving God. He doesn’t want to condemn us, but to lovingly lead us and put us back on track. We should remember to be that way toward others as well.
In my devotions recently, I was struck by this verse:
But God was gracious and showed mercy to them… He never gave up on them, never even considered discarding them, even to this day.
2 Kings 13:22-24, The Message
I am humbled, encouraged and truly blessed by the comments I have read so far. My heart has needed to be moved recently – and still does – and your words… all of them, from each and every person… has revealed God’s heart… not about me or what has been written, but about Him and who He is.
I would comment back to each one of you hear but feel it would get lost in translation with too many to comment back to. Trust this, that in where I am right now and have been for the past week or so, your words are reaching in and doing work to a heart that needs to moved.
Thank you!
~Babs