Grace and Rich Turner on Generosity Learned Early

[Music] growing up in the family I grew up in we didn't have very much but my parents were extremely generous with what they did have so it taught me that you know again be being raised in a Christian home I was taught very early on that whatever we had was to be used for the Lord my mom told has told me just story after story of the Lord providing for us when we needed it and she tells a story of one time she was at our church with the family and a woman a single mom came up to her and said you know I'm so thankful um your husband gave me $2 and I really needed that and I just wanted to let you know that and my mom said she was fighting back tears because she knew

that was our last $2 and so um that just spoke to me that you know you're you can give away your last $2 and God will make sure that your needs are met um but we have kind of I can let you tell the story maybe about what really set in our life together and our marriage it was a very hard thing yeah that taught us to be generous of heart so um but I wouldn't trade it for anything so the beginning of our generosity story it's hard to know I mean their Roots can go so far back and graces are are so genuine with her her father but going further right after uh Grace and I were married I'd

been working in banking for a few years at the time and things seemed to be going well uh we bought a house right after we got married um small little place but we loved it I took a couple of weeks off to uh this is just a couple of months into our marriage took a couple of weeks off to move in and do a few repairs and whatever got back to work first meeting of the morning I was laid off so there we were um fresh a new mortgage no savings I mean Mar six months married 6 months already everything we had was had already been put into the house um but we had a neighbor Larry and Cindy Bell I'll even

name them um strong Christian family we had gotten to know them uh just in in passing uh not deeply but well enough that we both knew we were Christians Larry was a a great at the time became a great mentor for me he came over and they were not overly uh well off either his business was struggling but he came over to me and and first offered Comfort but very quickly and very soon after that in the same conversation he says don't forget to be faithful and giving to the Lord so we did it was very difficult a little like

Grace's example of $2 to give to somebody who needed it when it was your last $2 but we resolved at that point um and we kind of knew without speaking it that it was a foundational moment for our marriage in our lives time to be painful and we learned it early it our life became almost a an ongoing story of Loaves and Fishes um every time something came up it looked like we only had a couple of fish and when we took care of something we turned around and there was another basket and I don't mean we had baskets of cash but there was always

[Music] enough and that meant so much to Grace and I early in our marriage it meant so much to see that being faithful really mattered and um from that point on it's been I think it's been a foundational part of of our lives in wherever we are and whatever we're doing a great deal of it goes back to the church but it also goes to other things as well and and um when there's a need and so um we feel very strongly that that we need to continue to be faithful in that way no matter what our circumstances are good bad or just okay