Bending the Knee of Our Hearts
Mark S. Roberti, Director of Stewardship & Development
Heartland Parishes of Ellis County

Stewardship is about conversion. Generally -- in fact, almost without exception – people do not practice stewardship unless they have had some type of conversions experience. By conversion, I don’t mean from another religion, but from another mind set, another way of life.

At a recent stewardship conference I attended, a speaker said something that really struck me. She spoke of a couple whose twelve year old daughter had been killed in an accident. The couple responded by deciding to tithe ten percent of their time, talent, and treasure to God in gratitude for having been given the gift of their daughter for twelve years.

When the speaker said that, rushing though my mind went prayers of thanksgiving for being gifted my twelve- year old son. I also thanked God for the grace of allowing me to see the light in advance. God has gifted me with the grace of understanding and the grace of wisdom to respond to the prompting of the Holy Spirit in tithing of my time, talent, and treasure. Though there were probably 200 people in that room, at the moment I got down on the knees of my heart and gave thanks to God. Thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, I repeated within myself to God.

I have a good friend, a deacon. The man has a wife who is a near saint. Both have been practicing stewardship for years and years. Several years ago, he was notified his wife had breast cancer. When I heard the news several hours later I immediately went into his office to offer him my support and to let him know that I would be praying strenuously for her.

I’ll never forget that moment either. He is a man of imposing physical stature. He was sitting in his chair, elbows on his knees, his forehead cupped in his hands. As I came in to express my concern and support, he lifted his head from his hand, looked up at me, and shook his head.

"Mark," he said, I don’t know how we would be able to deal with this if we had not been practicing stewardship." Then he went into what a gift his wife had been to him, how grateful for having had her for so long, and how stewardship had prepared them both for this moment and others like it. He didn’t know what was going to happen, he said, "but whatever happens, we are both ready for it."

Praise and thanks to God, and thanks also to a top-notch doctor, his wife is still alive and well today. But the reality is that grace carried them through. And grace would have carried them through even if God had taken her. "Stewardship impacts the very way you look at life," he told me.

Every breath is a gift. Every single breath is a gift. And if we can’t see that, we are fools. Why hoard? Why accumulate so many things? Why not give as much as we can? Someday, that next tomorrow is not going to come.

It’s time, it’s past time, to get down on our knees in gratitude. It is time to bend the knee of our hearts. It’s time to respond to God’s grace and answer God’s call to stewardship.