Anyone who knew my Grandpa Beiler, fondly called Grampy, knew he was a character. It was common knowledge that he was stubborn, headstrong, and never wrong, but I loved him dearly. Once when the hospital had shaved his beard after an accident, he told me I sat on his lap and said, “I love you, Grampy, but you look so ugly without your beard!”

 Grampy was a carpenter and had a sawmill and a carpenter shop on his property which he refused to stop using in spite of failing vision. Every now and then my mother would report in a family letter, “Grampy cut off part of another finger last week.” No one was surprised. We all just shook our heads. I’m not sure how many whole fingers he had left when he died!

But a little over a year ago, I learned something about my irrepressible Grandpa that I didn’t know. There was a family-owned grocery store in our town where he loved to go and have lively conversations with the owners, Blaine and Esther Durst. Eloise, one of their daughters, told me, “Your Grandpa Beiler always planted two gardens every year—one for himself and one to give away. He told us the one he planted to give away always did better than the one he planted for himself.”

I love that picture of Grampy’s generosity. Rather than only giving away things he didn’t need, he actually planted a garden specifically to give away. How easy it would have been for him to decide instead, that which ever garden did better was his, and the one that didn’t do as well was to give away.

Donn’s grandfather was also a carpenter. He was quiet, a man of few words and about as different from Grampy as two people could be. But they had at least one thing in common—their generosity. Donn tells me that one year his grandparents planted 300 tomato plants in their huge garden, and neither of them liked tomatoes! When Grandpa Townsend was hospitalized with a life-threatening heart attack, he asked his daughter to make sure someone took his “tenth money” (already set aside) to put in the offering at church. What an example to his children and grandchildren of obedience and generosity with his finances.

Scripture tells us, “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (II Corinthians 9:7). I believe both our grandfathers were cheerful givers and testimonies of the truth of the verse that follows, a favorite of mine, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (II Corinthians 9:8).

Thank you, Father, for the cheerful givers who have been examples to us of how you want us to live. Amen.

Photos: Grampy with his great granddaughter, Diane, and his grandson, Larry; Grandpa Townsend with our son, Robbie.