"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." --Thomas Jefferson

Sunday, November 2

And a Child shall lead them...

I was impressed and humbled on Friday when my wife and I had a conversation with our 3 year old daughter after the donut party and MDA fundraiser. We had already had a family discussion for family night about what we were doing for the fundraiser and why we were trying to raise money. As we cleaned up the party and counted the money in the boot, I asked my daughter if she wanted to donate some change. She excitedly said yes and ran in to get her piggy bank. I helped her pull some money out and explained to her again why we were donating money. I asked her if she wanted to give a dollar bill and she responded with an enthusiastic YES! I started putting the rest of the money away and she said "Daddy, what did you do with the other monies?" I responded that I had put it away in the piggy bank. She looked at me and said, "I want to do another one. I want to give another one to the scientists." I pulled out another dollar and asked her if that was good. She said no. She ran in and got a second piggy bank where she keeps change I give her for helping me outside in the yard and pulled out more money until her donation equalled $5.68. I watched in wonder as my little girl counted her quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies until she had emptied her little piggy bank of all of her change and deposited each one by one into the boot.



It was a moment I will never forget. My little girl showed me once again the most important things in life are not things and made me a grateful father that God sent us such a sweet and generous spirit. We try to teach her what she needs to know to be a decent and polite person but I often feel that roles are reversed in these regards.

1 comment:

Carlee Hoopes said...

Wow, it's amazing what kids can teach us. This is what I was talking about in my blog post last week. Hopefully someday I will be able to regain the amount of unquestionable generosity that Taylor has now. And hopefully she doesn't ever lose that. It's a good thing we have kids to keep our lives in check.