My paternal grandparents lived on a farm. Of course, barn cats (half wild) come with the territory. My grandmother routinely put out a mix of cat food and table scraps for them. Periodically, a cat would leave her the gift of a dead bird or dead mouse. If you can move past the "Oh, yuck!" reaction, you might see the heart of the gift. I'm not trying to over humanize these four legged creatures, but there is something about giving what comes from the heart, something we value.
Think of it another way. Sometimes children give us gifts of things that don't have much worldly value: dandelions, crayon streaked coloring pages, a sticker, rocks they collected, . . . . By the worlds standards they don't hold much value. But, by the heart's standards they can mean the world.
I've gone threw a bit of a phase of feeling like I don't have much to offer. I've felt myself thinking that I only have scraps to give. I want to offer God things that are so much bigger and better. The problem with that is that anything I give is like a scrap. Accept that like the bird or the gift from a child, it comes from the heart.
That is really what God wants -- my heart. He wants it even if it is a bit scrappy and worn. He wants it because even if it doesn't mean much to the world at large, it is of infinite value to Him. In that way, no heart felt gift to God is scrappy.
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