Selfishness comes naturally

In this day and age, selfishness just comes naturally.  We all have a bent to think of ourselves first and look out for NUMERO UNO.  ME!  ME FIRST!  It’s MINE!  Those are the all too often phrases that children and ADULTS all over the United States chime over and over each day… if not, each hour!

BUT I WANT TO BE DIFFERENT.  AND I WANT  MY KIDS TO THINK DIFFERENTLY!  And this is exactly what GOD wants for me and my family! Life is NOT ABOUT US… IT IS ABOUT GOD AND OTHERS.  Since this is not a natural response, we are in the process of reprogramming our hearts and the hearts of our children on a daily basis. 

One of the ways that we have found to do this in this season is through Operation Christmas Child.  It is a perfect way for our children to see that life is more about ME and all about YOU.  It started at Josiah’s birthday party. Instead of our guests bringing a present for him, we asked for them to bring an item to add to Josiah’s shoe box.  He totally understood that these things were for his box and NOT for him – things like small toys, toothpaste, soap, crayons, etc.  Then we bought other items to add to each of the kids’ boxes to make four in all.  The kids also used their chore money that they put in their “GIVE” jar each week for the OCC offering at church each week.  Many weeks the girls gave ALL their chore money for OCC… talk about UNSELFISHNESS!  They also completed MANY extra chores to get more offering money.

You see, they are starting to have more of an OTHER’S focus and are happily giving what they have for others.  AND IT WARMS MY HEART! 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

I just LOVE Caleb’s expression!

The whole crew….