The Insult

May 14, 2015

During the depression, my maternal grandfather was a sharecropper. He and my grandmother raised eight children and always had bountiful blessings of food because, besides being a sharecropper, my grandfather planted huge gardens every year and the family raised pigs, chickens, and cows. Plus, Grandpa was the neighborhood’s blacksmith. They had so much food they were able to share with others.

My mother told me that many times during the depression other family members along with their spouses and children came to live with Grandpa and Grandma until they got back on their feet financially.

One family that had come to live with Grandpa and Grandma got back on their feet and were doing quite well in the city, so they decided to send something to them to show their appreciation. Grandma got the box from them in the mail and opened it and was insulted. They had sent some clothes for her children that were only fit to be thrown in the trash. Clothing was one thing that was hard for my mother’s family to come by and Grandma would not have passed up even decent clothes, but these were not fit to use. She was so angry that she spent the money to mail the clothing back to the relatives.

When I heard this story, it made me think about the gifts that we give to God. He tells us to appear on Holy Days and to not appear empty-handed. It also made me think about the offering that Cain gave to God that He wasn’t pleased with.  We can’t just bring any kind of trash to God and expect Him to be happy with it. God deserves our best and He says to bring Him the firstfruits; we can’t just throw something together at the last minute and we can’t just give Him something no one would even want. We can’t live lives that disappoint God and expect Him to be happy with us either.

My grandmother used money that was very hard to come by to return the ‘gift’ she was insulted by. I don’t want to give gifts to God that He is insulted by.

~Mary Jo Jackson