He Said, She Said

I enjoyed giving spontaneously.

Clem and Julia Boyd

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Clem's Side

I've always been a soft touch. Even as a kid, I'd ask my parents if I could pledge some of my small allowance to Jerry Lewis's Labor Day telethon. And when I was a teenager attending school in the city, the street people always knew I'd give them a few quarters.

As a young adult, I felt God calling me to become a more consistent giver. I chose several worthy causes and disciplined myself to contribute to them on a regular basis. Then I met Julia, and she opened up a lot of areas in my life, including the possibility of doing more for the work of God with our combined income once we got married.

Julia is a pretty easygoing person, and after we were married I assumed that she would go along with us giving as much as possible to good organizations. But in our second year of marriage, I realized that wasn't the case. When we sat down with an accountant at tax time and tallied up our charitable contributions for the year, Julia saw a stack of receipts for tax-deductible gifts that she didn't know I had made.

I could tell she was ticked. The skin tightened around her forehead and her back straightened. But I felt justified. After all, we had continued to put food on the table and we were living in a nice home. My spur-of-the-moment giving hadn't prevented us from meeting our basic needs. Yet Julia felt betrayed, and I felt confused.

Julia's Side

While growing up, I had become a bit calloused about calls for money—it seemed there were so many people wanting money for so many different causes. But Clem helped me see that giving was a response to God's grace. I began to view money as something God loans to us so we can use it to do the good he desires. That was a completely new perspective for me.

Clem's commitment to Christ and his knowledge of the Bible were what initially attracted me to him. But beyond that was the idea that with our combined income we could do more to help others.

After we got married, we talked about what causes we wanted to support. Clem had sponsored one child through World Vision, and we decided to sponsor a total of four children. We also opted to give to a local mission where we had once volunteered. And beyond that, we supported several missionaries. Within our first year of marriage, we were giving at a rate far beyond what I was accustomed to.

Still, I was alarmed when we were preparing our taxes the following year and Clem pulled out receipts from various groups that had called on the phone wanting $10, $25 and even $50. While I knew these were good causes, I was miffed that Clem hadn't consulted me first. How could he casually give away part of our hard-earned income without mentioning it to me first?

What the Boyds Did

After Clem's giving habits were revealed, the Boyds decided it was time to discuss their differing views on charitable contributions.

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Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 1998, Fall

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