Everyone is aware that money is essential to our survival, its importance is just a winny bit below that of the air that we breathe. Why? Because it is the major means of exchange which enables us to acquire our basic needs in todays world. Even the very poor in our cities need money in order to buy food. Only in the villages and hamlets, in the remotest areas of the globe, will money not matter at all. So we all need this money, but as a christian I have began to question my attitudes due to certain things that have happened to me recently. My question for myself is, do I have an unhealthy relationship with this important part of life that prevents me from giving generously the way God intends me to?

Now you may ask why the soul searching? It's quite simple, in the last ten years I've lost both my mum and dad, without going into too much detail, this has brought on a lot of strife amongst some of my sibblings, the story is heart wrenching and disturbing. If anyone would have told me that this would happen to my family I would have said "Absolutely No Way", but here we are 2007 and some of us are not talking to each other.

We were as close knit as a normal large family could be, considering the fact that I am more than 10 years older than 3 of my sibblings, some of us were in boarding house and in different countries as we grew up so didn't actually spend that much time together. Yet we were close and money or no money, we really should not be in such a bad state but we are.

Also I've found myself fall from giving a tithe to just giving mere handouts to the church recently. This has been in relation to anger that I felt when we found out that money given in previous years had not been wisely spent by the church, when this became obvious the tithing stopped.

But really is this right. Bitterness is very dangerous and so is an unforgiving heart. Money is important for suvival but truely I'm not starving, so no matter what people have done its best to keep life in perspective and not get sucked into the anger that normally follows the feeling of being wronged.

I have a couple of long distant phone calls to make and some. Regardless of what wrongs have been done the important thing is to let grace abound.

Giving is not just a money issue, time, energy, and love is also needed by our world. I am happier now than I was before and I look forward to learning and growing daily in the grace of giving generously.