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| From Nintendo Customer Service Center |
In late 2006, when I was in San Francisco, I was attending a church called GrX ("Great Exchange"). GrX is a mobile church, but they started a capital campaign to buy their own permanent building. At that time, I was developing a new sense of what it means to give: that giving can be an obligation, but that giving can also be a challenge, an opportunity, and a privilege. (More on that below.) In the end, I decided to pledge ~$11,000/year for each of the next 3 years.
Why $11,000/year? In my case, I had done a quick estimate based on breaking even: my salary (~$45,000) minus taxes, rent, food, etc. I added a little more as a bit of a push, and also because I knew I would get a slight raise each year. So it was a bit of a sacrifice, but I knew I had money in the bank to fall back on.
In 2007, I fulfilled my pledge for the year.
In 2008, I was routinely fulfilling my pledge monthly, but in July I quit my job. Since then, I have dipped into my bank accounts but have continued monthly pledges. However, I know I have more in the bank than the average American family, which has $3,800.
2009 was approaching. On the plus side, my parents had long ago bought me stock in a company called Fiserv, which had done well over the years. I had 200 shares of Fiserv, and, in September 2008, Fiserv stock was $50/share = $10,000! I could donate that and fulfill almost an entire year of my pledge! (Donating the stock, rather than selling it first and donating cash later, would yield a better tax deduction.) However, I was greedy and wanted to wait, to see if the stock would go up even more.
Instead, the stock dropped ... quickly. By the end of October, the stock was less than $35/share = $7,000. Now I would have to take an extra $3,000 out of the bank! However, there was an expectation that Fiserv stock would recover eventually, perhaps by late 2009. I could wait a few months, even up to the last month my pledge was due (December 2009).
But essentially, I was holding back on giving now, just so it would cost me less. Somewhere, I had lost the spirit of giving, the reasons for giving! At the end of 2008, I did a complete review of all of my assets, and I knew I could afford to fulfill my pledge either way. So, after some hedging back and forth, in mid-January 2009, I transferred my 200 shares to GrX. Because the transfer would take a couple of days to process, and because the stock market fluctuates, I would have to wait to see exactly how much the shares (and my donation) would be worth. Hopefully, Fiserv stock would not go down in the meantime.
A couple of days later, I got a letter in the mail from my broker, Charles Schwab: my transfer was proceeding. Good. In the same day's mail, I also got an unexpected letter: it was from a bank in Utah, telling me that I had a certificate of deposit (CD) there. The CD was about to mature, and it was worth almost $7,000!
Remember, I had just performed a review of all of my assets! Or at least I thought I had. I consider myself to be relatively well-organized, but somehow I had missed this.
Isn't that strange? I had fought back and forth with my conscience, but I had finally given in and donated a large sum of money. Then a couple of days later, I find that I had almost the same amount of money "hidden away"!
To be more precise, the letter from the bank said that the CD was currently worth $6,868.
A couple of days later, I got an e-mail from GrX. The e-mail told me the exact value of my donation, which was calculated by using the average price for Fiserv stock on the day of the actual transfer.
The amount: $6,869.
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Similar to my last post, I like how the true story above is different from a lot of fiction, much of which seems designed to manipulate our emotions, at the expense of truth. In this case, the amounts are not exactly the same. Technically, I already had the CD. I still have money in the bank. And in my circumstances and in my heart, I am not like the poor widow who gave her last two pennies to God (Luke 21). This was a miracle in reality.
Earlier, I said that giving can be a challenge, an opportunity, and a privilege. In my case, I had promised to give someone $11,000 within the next year, I had stock that had recently dropped to $7,000, and I had some money in the bank. A challenge: not to trust in my own calculating mind. An opportunity: to put faith in God. A privilege: experiencing the miracle, and being able to testify about it.
I used to be very mechanical and calculating in my donations: exactly 10%. I still have struggles to be truly generous, but I am very grateful for the times that I have been able to see things in a different light. It is like everything flips upside-down. An old pastor friend in LA spoke of "seeing in light of eternity." When a man gets a chance to see the world from a totally different perspective, and it takes him from a begrudger to a joyful giver, perhaps that is the true miracle?
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By the way, the picture of me and Pikachu has nothing to do with the story, although I know Pokemon can also be considered a "money miracle" of a different kind. I recently went to visit the Nintendo Customer Service Center, which is just east of Seattle. I splurged and bought the "Ghost Mario" in my hand. Isn't he cute?
