No guarantees. That should be on the label of every skein of yarn, every fruit and vegetable, every heart.

Does everything work out the way we hoped when we bought the yarn, put the veggies in our farmer’s market bag, or served our heart on a platter?

Nope. It doesn’t. And that can get discouraging.

We want to serve, we want to love, we want to learn. Our hearts yearn for opportunities.

But not every gift is well received.

• A baby hat, gently crafted and prayed over, may be tossed in a heap, rejected because it wasn’t store bought.

• A basket of green tomatoes, longing to be cornmeal-dipped and fried, may turn soggy and sloppy in the pan rather than crisp and succulent. Or worse yet, turn red and mucky out of neglect because there was so much other fruit to be eaten.

• A heart may learn all it can learn, love the best it knows how, serve all it can serve, but its gifts may still get left on the temporal platter.

Not the Fruit We Were Looking For

Sometimes, our learning, our loving, our serving doesn’t result in the fruit we were hoping for.

Why? Because the response of the recipient is truly beyond our control. (That hurts, I know.)

The fruit may fail, but it was still worth fruitifying*.

Fruit on Our Own Tree

The fruit we need to focus on when our gifts are rejected is not the end result, but the process by which:

• • We were changed.
  • Our lives were imprinted on.
  • We grew (in the wisdom that not everyone appreciates our fruit and we can live through it, if nothing else. 🙂 )

There is still fruit. It just might be on our own tree**.

If a recipient enjoys the fruit of our labor or love, all the better!

But if not, we know that we gave from our hearts, our hands, our pocketbooks.

And God knows, too.

Did you know that God doesn’t judge our giving based on the other’s receiving? Or what they do with it when they receive it?

God Himself gave His only Son, even with the knowledge that many would reject Him.

We Could Stop Giving

We could let the rejection stop us from giving.

(Oh, I hate rejection. It kills me. Right here —>  )

It certainly tempts us to hole up and never trust, never give again.

Or We Could Do This

There’s a better plan: keep giving.

On the wisdom side, there’s nothing wrong with being discerning about where we give, however.

We still can’t control the response, but we can certainly give where it is most likely to be appreciated.

Even Jesus walked away a time or two.

Three Opportunities

Here are three opportunities to give of our crafting talents where they are certainly greatly appreciated:

Please share in the comments about the trustworthy opportunities!

It’s Your Turn

• Have you given up giving because you’ve been burned?
• Do you prefer not giving because it feels safe?
• Is there a place or person that is not safe or wise for you to give to? (TIP: Pray that others will reach them with God’s love, for that’s the love they really need.)
• Are there others you would like to give to, but are afraid how they will respond? (TIP: Give once and see how it goes! )

*Fruitifying may not be a real word, but it’s my word. 😀

**REALITY CHECK: Some of the fruit we grow as a result of rejection and other fallen world problems is moldy, mucky and best tossed in the compost heap. But sometimes, we are afraid of giving up that fruit because we aren’t confident we can bear any better. That’s when we need to …