Special Offering

Nobie McGill was an eighty-eight-year-old retiree from the Texas Woman’s Missionary Union. During the Great Depression she set a personal goal of giving $1 to the Southern Baptists’ Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. One hundred pennies doesn’t sound like much, but it took all year for this mother of two to save a dollar. She remembers that offering as “the happiest money I ever gave to anything.” In 1983 Mrs. McGill was inspired by a message from Minette Drumwright and asked God to permit her the opportunity of giving $1,000 above her tithes and offerings. That year she reached her goal and gave $1,000 to foreign missions. The next year she gave $2,000, then $3,000, then $4,000 and finally, (in her eighties) she was able to give $5,000 above her tithe to Lottie Moon. Upon reflection, Mrs. McGill simply said, “I can’t do many things, but I can get money together, and the Lord has really blessed me. I could have lived better, but I got joy out of giving.” In reality, we do live “better” when we find joy in giving, because “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7).

* Baptist Standard, Dec. 22, 1993, p. 11.
McHenry’s Quips, Quotes and Other Notes, HeavenWord Stories for Teachers and Preachers, CD-ROM, Raleigh NC, 1999.