A little while ago, my husband took the kids to visit his grandpa.  When they visit, they usually leave with candy and a dollar each.  Usually they are very excited about what they bring home.  However, this time was a different story.

The younger two were excited as usual and ran in to show me their loot! My oldest, walking heavy and very slowly with his head down, finally made it in the house.

By that time, my husband had pulled me over to the side and told me why he was so upset.  When Great Grandpa had given him his dollar, he walked over to my husband and said, “I don’t want ONE dollar, I want TWENTY dollars.”

I was mad, no, I was more than that.  My face was turning red, steam probably shooting my ears, I was LIVID!  How dare MY child think that he is entitled to more and to not be thankful for a gift.

By this time, he was in the same room and my husband asked him to tell me what was wrong.  After quite a few moments of silence, we got an “I can’t remember.”  It took lots of coaxing, but we finally got it out of him.

I told him that I was furious and very disappointed.  I told him that we would have to do something about this, but not now.  We asked for his dollar and he walked away head bowed.

Preparation

After I calmed down, I called my mom and told her.  She was shocked and also very angry.  I told her my idea of making him write an apology letter and that I was thinking about having the kids make blessing bags and having him put his dollar in one of the bags.

She said that she thought that sounded good, but that if I felt comfortable, to maybe see if we could visit a homeless shelter and see if he could find a kid to give his dollar to.  I thought this sounded like a great idea!  She also said that whenever my brother or I had a moral lesson to learn, she always made us look up a Bible verse and either write a letter or a report about the verse.

I Googled “greed scriptures” and of course, had a ton of information at my fingertips.

I also brought this story up to one of my friends and she suggested going to a Women’s and Children’s shelter.  (I am currently looking into this idea).

Consequence

Quite a few days later, I had a discussion with him about being grateful and about being greedy.  We got out our Kids Bible and read 1 Peter 5:2.  We discussed this so that he could understand it.  He then had to write a long apology letter, which included the Bible verse and he had to ask for forgiveness.

After he wrote his letter, I had the other two kids join us and we talked about how some people don’t have a place to live or sleep and not much to eat.  I asked them what they thought God would want us to do to help them and then we made the blessing bags.

Our finished bags!  (we used one for food and one for toiletries and then put both bags into a grocery sack)

What message would you put in a blessing bag?