This morning in church, just as the service started, a snowstorm started, too. Because the temperature was above freezing, it didn’t “stick,” but it was very pretty. I noticed something funny, though.

Out the western windows snowflakes were gently falling straight down. Out the north they were whipping sideways. I figured it was the shape of the building com- bined with wind currents.

It reminded me of a visit we made to Hawaii 27 years ago. The “wild island” of Kauai had beautiful beaches and rolling waves, but no one was swimming. That’s because skies were forever full of threatening black clouds and winds were fierce.

But then I learned the truth. While catching up on laundry at a public laundromat, I was grousing about the bad weather when another mom shared something interesting. “You know, don’t you, that on the other side of the island it’s always sunny?”

She explained how something called “localized weather phenomena” caused radically different weather systems on different sides of the island, sometimes to the extreme. We were on the south end, and if we drove a few miles toward the west, she said, we’d be on “the warm sunny side.”

These two weather stories reminded me of a biblical Proverb that says we shouldn’t let our left hand know what our right is doing. The instruction refers to our giving. God says we should do it in secret, telling us that he sees all anonymous giving and will reward us accordingly.

Anonymous giving isn’t all that common these days, though I suppose if it’s truly anonymous, who would know? Maybe the Bible’s point is that giving in secret comes with a couple of perks: it’s a type of hard-won victory to accomplish it without anyone knowing, and even better than that, God himself will be the One to reward us.

Of course we can’t really give in such a way that our left hand isn’t aware of what our right hand is doing, since both are connected to the same brain. But then again, watching the same snowstorm behave independently west and north, and the same island vary significantly south and west makes me want to try.

“When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:3-4)

Praising and Praying with Mary

A praise report on grandson Anders, doing well at home and now up to 5 pounds 11 ounces!