Paid in Advance

Although she has received many invitations from both of us, my ninety-one-year-old mother refuses to live near either my sister or me.  She is devoted to the tiny Kansas town where she was born and stubbornly refuses to leave.  Just before Thanksgiving this year it became necessary for her and my step-father to go into an assisted living facility; I foolishly thought that faced with that prospect she would agree for them to join me in El Paso, but, once again, she refused.

Fortunately, I have two very thoughtful and kind female cousins who visit her regularly and take her places. Recently, Mother told me that she did not know how she would ever be able to repay them for their kindness to her. She said that she had “thought and thought” but she could think of no way to repay them.

Finally, I said, “Mother, you can never repay them because life doesn’t work that way. When people are kind to us, we can never return that kindness in equal measure.” I then reminded her that when her mother was in her nineties, she visited her every day and made certain that all her needs were met.

“When Bonnie and Rene are your age,” I continued, “perhaps someone will visit them and do for them what they have done for you. That’s the only way they can ever be reimbursed for their kindness to you.”

In life we cannot pay it back, and we cannot pay it forward. We pay in advance, or we do not pay at all. This is my New Year’s message for 2013: When you are thinking about your New Year’s resolutions, why not forget about the promise to go on a diet or go to the gym? Those are good goals, but we all know that those kinds of resolutions are normally short-lived.  Why not resolve to treat those God puts in your path with genuine Christian love? They will never be able to pay you back, and most of them will never be able to pay it forward, but in meeting some of their needs you will be storing up a little treasure in heaven.

Perhaps one day when you need it most, God will send someone your way who will show you true Christian love, but even if that day never comes, you will be richer for having invested your time in someone who needs to be reminded that they are precious to God and precious to you.

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Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother. Her novel, The Warrior, about how one woman's prayers change the lives of those around her, is available on Kindle and in paperback. For more information visit her website at Frontier 2000 or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.