Memorial Box Monday: A Valentine Lesson in Giving

Linny over at A Place Called Simplicity shares wonderful stories of how God has worked in her life in a feature called Memorial Box Mondays.  She explains her decision to do this, and shares a truly wonderful story in this first post:  http://aplacecalledsimplicity.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-about-memorial-box-mondays-aka-we.html .  To help me with reminders of God's faithfulness in this new venture that may turn out to be a long one, I've decided to start recording some of these.

Today God had a lesson on giving for us, taught through our 5 year old.  At the end of the homeschool group Valentine party the younger children had balloons to take home.   Ella was excited about taking home a balloon for her brother, since she had one at home from a birthday party over the weekend.  We were putting coats on and saw one of the younger girls was sad about not getting a balloon.  I asked Ella if she wanted to give hers to the little girl who didn't have one.  The wheels turned as she weighed how much she had wanted the ballon versus making someone else happy.  Then she walked over to the other girl and held it out, saying, "Here, this is for you."  And that was that.  No tears were shed, she was fine with giving it away and didn't seem to miss it on the way home.

Later on her daddy got home from work.  He's an elementary teacher and had brought home some of the extra treats from their classroom party.  Before we even had a chance to tell him about the kind act, he pulled out something special:  a balloon for Ella, one for her brother, and an extra.  :)  One of the kids had brought in balloons for the party, and they had a few left over.  It was a perfect pint-size lesson in giving ala Luke 6:38 as she and I told him about her act of kindness.  And a beautiful reminder to me that if God is even faithful for a little girl's desire to have a balloon, how much more faithful will He be in our new venture.