Grip

Miss Katie has been taking guitar lessons at the church for the last couple of months. Her instructor Mr. Phil says our girl is doing well. Kate is already looking forward to the next round of lessons that will be more intensive during the summer (three lessons per week). We're thinking of starting Erin in lessons this summer, too. Katie has a guitar of her own. Erin has my brother's old guitar which is not quite in good repair, so I asked Kate if she would be willing to share her guitar with Erin for lessons. I saw the immediate desire to shout "NO!" run across her face, but she hesitated before answering to ask if I had seen what Erin had done to Uncle Jim's old guitar. (Hee. I also saw what Katie did to my old guitar before she received the one she plays now. I did not point that out though!)
Katie has been seeing how giving works according to God's provision rather than the common fear of being "taken". She gave all she had to an offering recently, and she lost nothing by giving. (Rather than saving for a bike, she received the bike of her dreams as a gift from her grandparents after she gave away her savings to charity.) I asked her this morning if she thought that God was big enough to provide her with a replacement guitar if Erin did something really terrible to her instrument. She thought about it for a moment more, but in the end she grinned and agreed that if we could not come up with a guitar for Erin to learn to play that she would share with her sister.
That was a huge concession because Katie already shares so much with Erin, and she really does enjoy being able to reserve her two prized possessions (the guitar and her bike) for personal use. Yet, when it became a possibility that Erin might actually need the use of one of those possessions, Katie chose to hold on to the guitar with an open hand rather than a death-grip. She may not need to hand the guitar off to her sister during the summer lessons, but if there is not a separate instrument for her sister, I know Katie will follow through to share so her sister can also learn to play.