You know, I wonder how many of us have ever felt that we have ever been taken, or swindled or misused by someone else? If perchance you have felt that way, or maybe you feel that way right now, would you consider the following story?

Many years ago there was a young mother who received a knock one morning at her door. When she opened the door, she found a large frightened looking man asking her for money.

“We have no money,” she said.

Persistently though, he pressed his demands insisting that she give him some money. Finally, he said, “I’m hungry. I would like to get something to eat.”

“Well,” the woman said, “If that’s the case, then I can help you.”

So off to the kitchen she went, and soon she returned with a small sack lunch prepared from her meager food supply. The man looked displeased as she gave him the lunch, but he took it and he left. Now, from the doorway she watched the man go down the lane to the main road. But as soon as he crossed the property line, he took the lunch and threw it over the fence into the bushes. The woman was angered as you can imagine by the ingratitude and the waste.

Now, about a week later, this same mother was interrupted again by another knock at her door. Upon opening it she discovered a tall raw-boned teenager making essentially the same request, “We need help; we’re hungry. Could you please give us some food or money?”

Remembering the previous experience, she quickly responded, “No! I’m sorry. I’m busy. I – I can’t help you today.”

Without a word of protest, the young man turned away. She watched him walk out the gate. And it was then that she noticed a wagon and a team of horses parked out front. In the wagon were a father, mother, and several children. As the young man swung up into the wagon, he looked back at her with a sorrowful pained expression. Pierced by that look, she hesitated, but it was too late. The team had moved out and the wagon was already down the lane.

Perhaps it was with a hint of pain and regret that ever after that, that dear mother would tell that story to her children and would close with this moral, “Never fail to give that which you have to someone who’s in need.”

I conclude from that: To refuse to love anyone again because once your love was rejected, or to refuse to trust anyone again because once your trust was broken, or to refuse to give anything that you have to anyone again because once your giving was abused – is to refuse to live. Life is a risk. It always has been. It’s all about loving, trusting, and giving of ourselves. Take it away and what do we have left? Nothing? We wither and die like an un-watered plant.