When a relative is sick or a child needs school fees, the first question is usually how much you can give. A retired pensioner living on a fixed income often avoids answering it. The family then makes its own guess, and guesses tend to run high. This article explains how to tell relatives you can’t give more financial help, truthfully and kindly, before hope turns into disappointment.
Why Silence About Money Leaves Relatives Guessing and Hoping
A relative who does not know your limit will fill the gap with assumptions. They know you received something last month, and they may know you helped another household. They may not know what rent, medicine, transport and your own food take out of the pension first.
Scripture describes what follows: “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12). A relative who hopes for a full term of school fees, and learns in the last week that only part is coming, is hurt twice, once by the shortfall and once by the waiting. Meanwhile you may grow tired of requests you cannot meet, and that tiredness can turn into resentment on both sides.
A stated limit removes the guessing. The relative can make other plans in good time and ask other family members or the community for help, and the family can stop reading meaning into your silence.
Count It First: Writing Down What the Pension and the Small Gifts Can Truly Carry
You cannot tell anyone a number you have not worked out yourself. Our Lord taught this in plain terms: “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” (Luke 14:28). Do the count before the conversation, on paper, not from memory.
Use two columns. In the first, write what comes in each month:
- the pension, in the amount it actually reaches your hand
- any regular small gift you can reasonably expect, counted only if it has come steadily
- any other fixed help you are sure of
In the second, write what must be paid before anything is given away: housing, your own food, your own medicine, transport, and the modest costs of your preaching. What remains is the true figure available to relatives.
Leave out irregular gifts that may not come. If one arrives, you can treat it as a bonus and tell the family so. Promising from uncertain money is how a faithful man ends up breaking his word. If the monthly figure is hard to find, the article on making a fixed pension last the month without dropping your ministry may help you with the count.
Saying the Number Out Loud: A Plain, Respectful Way to Tell a Relative What You Can Give
Choose a quiet time and speak to the relative in person where you can. A private conversation spares them embarrassment, and it lets you see how they receive what you say. Do not raise it in a crowded room or on the day of a crisis.
Name the amount, the schedule, and the reason, in that order. For example: “Each month I am able to give this amount. It comes at the start of the month. It is all I can give, because my pension is fixed and my own needs are paid from it first.”
A few habits help the words land:
- Give the figure as a fact. Do not apologise for it at length, and do not hint that more may come.
- Say what the amount is meant to cover, so that it is not mistaken for a general promise.
- Ask the relative to repeat back what they understood. This corrects any misunderstanding while you are still in the room.
- Thank them for their patience and for their honesty with you about the need.
“Let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay” (Matthew 5:37). A figure stated once and kept every month is worth more than a larger sum offered loosely and then withdrawn.
Food, Medicine, Uniforms, School Fees: Agreeing Together Which Need Comes First
A fixed sum cannot cover every need at once. If you decide the order alone, a relative may feel overruled. If you decide it together, they share responsibility for the plan and understand its limits.
List the needs on the table: food, medicine for the sick, school uniforms, school fees, books and transport. Then ask the family which cannot wait. Illness and hunger usually press first, because they affect the body now. Fees and uniforms often have deadlines, and a deadline can justify setting money aside early in the term.
Agree on one order and write it down, for example that medicine and food are paid every month and that part of each month’s remainder is saved toward the next school term. Settle also who will carry what you cannot. A parent, an older cousin or a neighbour may be able to take one item, and the community can be asked to help with another. If the need is for uniforms and supplies, a small community can gather them for children who have none, and your relatives may be able to take part in that effort.
When the Answer Must Be No, and How to Say It Without Shutting the Door on Love
Sometimes the request is for something you cannot give at all: a large sum for a hospital bill, or a second set of fees in the same month. Say no plainly and early. A delayed refusal costs the relative time they cannot get back.
Keep the refusal to the request and do not extend it to the person. You might say: “I cannot give this. It is beyond what I have, and I will not promise what I cannot pay. I can still pray for you, visit you, and help you look for who else might assist.” Each of those offers must be something you will actually do.
Avoid three things in a refusal: blaming the relative for asking, comparing them to others who ask less, and hiding behind vague words such as “we will see.” Those leave the relative unsure whether to keep hoping. James warns against the kind of kindness that offers only words when the need is real: “Be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?” (James 2:16). The remedy is to give what you truly can, name what you cannot, and do not dress the second as the first.
If a no has caused hurt, go back after a few days and ask how the relative is. Contact after a refusal shows that the relationship does not depend on the money.
What Scripture Says About Giving According to What a Person Has
Paul gave the Corinthians a standard that suits a man on a pension: “For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not” (2 Corinthians 8:12). God does not ask you to give what you do not have. He asks for a willing mind and an honest hand, and he accepts a gift measured by the means you actually possess.
The widow who cast two mites into the treasury gave little by the world’s measure, and our Lord said she had given more than all the others (Mark 12:41-44). Her gift was counted as given from her own poverty, not compared against the rich. A pensioner who gives a small, steady sum each month is in the same position before God.
The remainder is also addressed. “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). Paul wrote that to a church that had given generously out of its own poverty. The promise does not say you will be the supplier of every need in your family. It says God will supply, and he may do it through other relatives, neighbours or the church, or in some way you cannot foresee. When you have told the truth about your limit and given what you have, you can pray with a clear conscience for the rest. For more on this, see what God actually promised to provide for the preacher, and how a preacher can pray when the bread is running short.
Keeping the Family Informed Month by Month So Trust Grows and No One Is Surprised
One conversation will not last a whole year. Pensions change, illnesses worsen, and school terms bring new costs. A short monthly check keeps everyone’s expectations in line with the facts.
Keep it simple. When you give the monthly amount, say what it was spent on or meant for, and ask whether the situation has changed. If the sick relative has improved, or a new cost has appeared, adjust the plan together. If your own circumstances change, such as a rise in rent or a health expense of your own, say so at once instead of letting the gift shrink without explanation.
Writing the figures in a small notebook and showing it when asked does no harm. It answers the question “where did it go?” before anyone has to ask it. Over time, relatives learn that your words match your actions, and that kind of trust makes later hard conversations easier. If the family also needs to understand what your ministry costs the household, the article on telling them so and sharing the reward speaks to that.
Care for a sick relative is itself part of your service, as caring for a sick relative is part of your ministry explains. A true account of what you can give is part of that care.
This week, set aside one quiet hour to sit with a relative, tell them honestly what you are able to give each month, and pray together that God will supply what remains.
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