My good friend, Steve, last night gave me his ipod. I was SO stoked.
I told him the day before that my sister had given me her old one. But it was pink and only gave sound out of the left headphone. I joked that when I go running I run in circles and my head is tilted to the left.
My sister gave me her pink left eared nano ipod because the iPod shuffle my mom gave me for Christmas I couldn’t use anymore.
I lost the charger, an expensive one, in Romania while with one of the teams.
I told my mom how for the final months on the field I would just open my computer and use it as my gigantic iPod. Kind of like the boombox days, remember those. A guy with rolled up jeans, walking down the beach, carrying an oversized stereo system on his left shoulder. Yep, that was me, 21st century style, carrying my computer around as my stereo.
The reason my mom gave me a shuffle iPod was because the iPod my co-squad leader gave me last August was stolen. I was climbing out of a Matatu (Ugandan van taxi) and the conductor swiped it from my seat.
The reason Mike gave me his iPod was because the iTouch Lisa on another team gave me was stolen.
In July last year, Tanzania, the missionary home we were staying at, at about 3:00am, 6 of us guys had almost all our stuff stolen. We were sleeping, the thiefs weren’t. They swiped $30,000 dollars worth of stuff, including the gifted iTouch I was given.
The reason I was gifted this iTouch from Lisa was because….I can’t even remember. I probably had another stolen or broken ipod before that. LOL.
All this to say, I’m on my 5th given iPod. 5th!!!
There’s a saying: “I have to unclench my fist in order to give or receive.”
My life is blessed because others live with unclenched fists. They give. The love.
And I’m okay, even happy at times, to lose or get my possessions stolen or broken, because it gives someone else the opportunity to be Jesus to me, and keeps me closest to Jesus and not my stuff.
Do you live with unclenched fists?
If you do, you’ll be such a blessing to someone else, and God can bless you beyond your imagination.
Listening to music with my 5th iPod given in the past 12 months is making me smile right now.
