Testimonies & Thoughts

We knew for Christmas we wanted to get our three children a backyard playset.  When a stranger donated $1000 to us for the holidays, we felt this was our "playground money gift" from the Lord. I had the check in my purse.  We were on a routine visit for my husband's outpatient physical therapy.  Our family decided to go to the inpatient floor to see if we could visit a friend's uncle who we heard was there.  He had checked out already, but in the process the Lord orchestrated us meeting a different family.  We tried to encourage them, and in the conversation, I had picked up on a few key words the mother said about their needs. When we left, I felt the Lord impressing on my heart that we should donate our $1000 to this particular family.  It sounded like they needed funds for food and gas while their 20 year old son was just beginning his journey of healing. I presented this "feeling" to my husband and two daughters.  We stopped in the hallway to...

This morning in church, I wrote our pre-determined tithe check and remembered I had a $20 bill in my purse as well.  I had received it for my birthday (over a month ago), and had forgotten about it until this moment.  I felt compelled to give it to my six year old daughter to let her drop it in the offerring plate as it passed by.  I gave our check to our eight year old daughter. Later, in the car, when my husband asked if I had given our tithe (he had been in a men's classroom study), our six year old was excited to share with her daddy that she had also put in $20. I said, "It was my birthday money.  I decided we did not need it." My 6 year old daughter replied, without missing a beat, "Yeah, we don't need $20, we need more!" I found this really comical and precious to see her ability to think about giving completely differently than I was.  She already understands that we cannot outgive God (Malachi 3:10).  Even I was looking at giving the $20 as...