On giving until it hurts...or doesn't

Gus-Gus is six months old on Friday. I can't believe it's been half a year. Just think:

I live that amount of time again, and he'll be a year old.

I live it seven more times, and he'll be starting kindergarten.

I've been thinking about Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree lately. It was one of my favorite books as a child, before I realized it was about parents.

If you haven't read the story, there is a video of Shel narrating an animated version here. It is rather melancholy, so take care if you have mommy hormones.

The tree gives and gives and gives until she becomes just an old stump. And then the ungrateful little boy/old man sits on her. And she's happy. As if mom-culture didn't have enough guilt in it already. Sure. Reduce me to a stump. Take everything I have. And if I am sad about it, obviously I just don't love you enough.

But I think there's two types of giving here - the renewable kind and the nonrenewable kind. And making peace with the first helped me with the second. 

At first, the boy and the tree play together. She gives him shade, and apples, and leaves, and cuddles. These things don't take anything away from the tree...or if they do, they grow back. Apples fall every autumn and grow back in the summer. Leaves bud in the spring, no matter how many times you rip them off and make crowns from them. 

We make small sacrifices all the time. We stay up late for heart-wrenching conversations with family. We postpone lunch with a friend because a child is sick. We spend an afternoon volunteering instead of playing board games with friends. We wake in the middle of the night to soothe a crying baby. We give twenty dollars to hungry people instead of eating at a restaurant. We can always sleep later. We can always have fun some other time. And sometimes when we give, especially if we do something pleasing to God, I think He blesses us - with five hours of sleep that's surprisingly more restful than it should be, or an unexpected peaceful moment in the grocery store. It's true that sometimes He doesn't - there's no guarantee that you'll be blessed if you give. But I've learned to have confidence that even if He doesn't bless me, at least He gets me through.

But then, the book brings out the heavy sacrifices - the ones that eventually reduce the tree to bits. The boy sells her apples, builds a house from her branches, and uses her trunk to build a ship and sail the world. Here's where the giving seems unjust - how can making such large sacrifices give the tree such delight?

What if she hadn't given the boy those things? She would have kept them for a while, maybe shared them with another child or two. But what she never gives them to anyone? If she keeps them all to herself? Eventually, the fruit will stop bearing, limbs will break and wither, and even her trunk will rot. She'll still become a stump. But the boy wouldn't have gotten his house, or his boat. And she wouldn't have been as happy, seeing her good gifts go to waste. 

We have to give our lives to something, or some things. And for now, I've chosen to meet the needs of my child. And my husband. And my friends and family. And most of all, to seek after God. God willing, I will live to give months and years of my life to many worthy things. I just hope that I can always give it joyfully and intentionally, rather than wasting it on anxiety or fear or tvtropes. Because I only get so much of it, and trying to hoard time is just ridiculous. 

Love,

Katie

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."  - Jim Elliot