After Everything We Did for Them

When you helped someone, did you quietly acquire a right to their agreement?

We would probably say no. Then a friend turns down our request, and we remember the evenings we gave them when they were struggling.

The help really did cost us something.

Perhaps that is what makes this difficult to notice. A real kindness sits underneath the grievance, and we want the other person to remember it as vividly as we do.

The verse addresses charity. It also gives us a serious ethical question to bring to ordinary favors: what are our reminders doing to the person who received the help?

Imagine the friend hearing that difficult period brought into every disagreement. They may begin to wonder when they will be allowed to have an opinion without first proving that they are grateful.

We can need support ourselves. We can say that a friendship feels uneven, or that we cannot keep offering the same amount of help.

A loan or an explicit agreement also deserves an honest conversation about what was promised. We are looking here at the extra condition we attached to a freely offered kindness, sometimes long after offering it.

What did we want to ask this friend before the list of favors entered the conversation? A visit, a little help, some sign that we matter to them?

Try a small experiment with the next request: write it without mentioning anything you have already given. Let the person answer the need you have named, with room for an honest yes or no.

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The Blue Paint: an original fictional story for families

Amal gave her friend Huda a pot of blue paint. Huda had used the last of hers painting a sky in her picture for the school display.

The next afternoon, Amal wanted Huda's picture to have a sea as well. Huda thought the paper was already crowded.

"You used my paint," Amal said.

Huda put down her brush. "Was the paint a gift?"

"Yes."

"Then why does it mean you choose the picture?"

Amal looked at the blue sky. She had liked helping to make it. She also liked having her own ideas chosen, and the two feelings had become tangled.

For a while, they painted without speaking. Then Amal moved the pot closer to Huda.

"It was a gift," she said. "You can still say no to the sea."

Huda picked up her brush again. She made a small blue bird beside the clouds.

Amal found a fresh sheet of paper for her sea. When Huda asked if she could paint a boat on it, Amal made room.

For families: Could Huda be grateful for the paint and still disagree about the picture?