In a neighborhood filled with houses of two-parent families and stay-at-home moms and kids who roamed the streets like free-range chickens, Justine stood out. She lived two doors down from us, with no husband, no kids, no pets. Just Justine. She was the only adult we were allowed to address by her first name. We didn’t call her Miss Justine or Aunt Justine, and apparently, she had no last name, or otherwise we would have used that.

From our childish perspective, Justine’s biggest fault was her choice of Halloween candy. It was so awful that we just stopped going to her front door altogether. The neighborhood band of mothers explained that Justine was frugal, and didn’t want to waste money on candy for a bunch of clowns. She was also frugal with her time, and didn’t waste it chatting with the neighbors. If you passed by her house when she was outside, she’d give a curt nod by way of greeting and carry on with whatever she was doing at the time. It was hard to miss the leave-me-be vibes Justine gave off.

I wish I could say that Justine had her Ebeneezer Scrooge moment and stuffed our trick or treat bags with the finest chocolate in town and threw the best block party ever, but she didn't. She remained aloof and detached, even when when my parents and the neighbors who lived between Justine’s and our house mowed her lawn, shoveled her snowy driveway, worked on her car or sent us kids to help her carry groceries from the car to her, well, carry the groceries to her front porch. The neighbors and my folks were generous to Justine because they had experienced God's generosity. It was never about economics.

A lot of us think of frugality as a virtue. According to Webster’s it’s “characterized by or reflecting economy in the use of resources.” We’re stewarding our resources, taking care of our families, being wise in our spending, showing tough love, not turning our country into a welfare state. The problem with thinking of frugality and its cousin parsimony as virtues is when we become economic in the use of resources such as generosity, compassion, love, kindness and gentleness, and in deciding who should be on the receiving end of them.

The very, very, very good news for all of us is that God is not frugal in his resources. His very words express his extravagant nature. In Genesis 22:18, God doesn’t just say that Abraham will have a lot of offspring, but God will “surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.” (Genesis 22:18) It’s not just some land God promised Moses, but a promised land flowing with milk and honey. The psalmists could have written that God is love, but instead they wrote that God abounds in love; that he not only removes sins but also removes them as far as the east is from the west.

Frugality isn't actually a virtue, especially for people upon whom God has lavished the riches of his glorious grace. The true virtue, the true goodness is when we are like our extravagant God and share with a hurting, dying world his abounding love and mercy that removes their sins as far as the east is from the west.