Dignity Torn to Shreds

Today I am reading about the widow woman who gave all she had "out of her poverty." And I am asking myself what it means to give all I have to live on. The woman in Jesus' story was a real person, not a parable told to make His point. In the Jewish culture of her day, this female without a husband was clinging to the bottom rung of society's ladder. In fact, she was so low that she was flying beneath her neighbors' radar. While it may be difficult to fathom performing some task out of my natural giftedness, this dear soul was not counting the cost. While I may be whining about the tension in my comfort zone or bragging about how it's growing, this woman was living with her eyes downcast to avoid creeping into someone else's imaginary comfort zone. When I balk at something God asks of me because it might inconvenience some beloved member of my family, this generous benefactor was subsisting without any guardian or patriarch. How am I guarding my precious dignity, when all around me, other people's dignity has been torn to shreds? How am I guarding my budget, when another has a desperate need that God can meet through me? How am I searching my ability to give, when the answer lies in my inability to give and His ability to provide? When do I measure my energy level to determine what I am willing to invest, when another person is caving under the burden of a load that I could help to shoulder? Do I limit what God can expect me to do for Him by bringing society's barriers to the Cross? When has my personal need to give been so desperate that I willingly let God take from me what was beyond my capacity to fathom giving under my own strength? Will I allow Him to tear my dignity to shreds in order to sew a garment of praise? "[All the others] gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything--all she had to live on." Mark 12:44