A Heart of Gold

There has been a lot of discussion in our house recently about how fortunate we are and to be thankful for the blessings we have.  It's hard to raise grateful kids in a material world!

Olivia was able to participate in our church's serve day this summer, so that was a start.  But she's constantly talking about how she wants to help out.  How she would invite people to her house, or how it's "just not fair" that she lives in this beautiful house (ha!) while others don't even have a home.

Of course we want to encourage her and help her live out being the hands and feet of Jesus instead of just talking about it.  It's hard, though, because a lot of normal volunteer places have age requirements on who can help.  So we decided to take a more immediate and age appropriate approach.

There was a piece of art we were studying, and Olivia's take was that the people were very poor and hungry.  She wished she could give them food.  So this week we headed to the store before art class.

We walked through the aisles and picked out food that would be good to share.

She was SO excited!

She talked non stop about how she hoped they liked what she picked out for them.  She also chose things like strawberry oatmeal, because "oatmeal fills you and Boppa up! and I like strawberry!"

Each week she has to learn a new Proverbs as part of our first grade curriculum.  As we were walking to the register to check out, she said, "He who refreshes others, will he himself be refreshed!" (part of Proverbs 11:25, which was her verse a few weeks ago).  Y'all, I'm not going to lie, I might have teared up a bit.  When the work of homeschooling, plus church, plus all the heart work you hope you are doing comes full circle and your child preaches to you... there are no words.

Right outside the art house is this little "red door food pantry".  We see it every week.  Last week it was empty, and as I was waiting to pick Olivia up, I saw a lady walk by looking for food.  So this seemed like the perfect opportunity for Olivia.  It's part of her life.

There was some food in there this week, but even by the time class was over, some of the food we had donated was already gone.  That made Olivia really happy!

We don't always do everything right as parents, and this one can be super sassy, but she also has a heart of gold.  I hope we can always teach and encourage her to be a generous giver!