In the hecticity of the front office last Monday morning (*yes, I just made up a word*), two students quietly entered the office with lost looks on their faces. This happens quite frequently.
I looked at the students and said, “What do you need, guys?” This happens quite frequently happens, too.
The girl of the pair said, “He has change for the Penny Pageant.” (The Parent/Teacher Organization held a Penny Pageant as one of its fundraisers this year.)
The boy of the pair humbly yet hopefully held out his hand and presented me with his coin collection: a tiny plastic baggy holding 30 pennies.
I said, “Got it. I’ll get this where it needs to go.” Then I turned to go back to my morning announcement spot in the office and cried.
Many of our students don’t have much to give, and yet this student or someone in the student’s family collected thirty pennies for him to donate to the pageant. How beautiful is that, friends? How extremely beautiful is that?
Thousands of years ago, a struggling widow gave all that she had to the church. It wasn’t much. It didn’t even equal a tiny baggy of 30 cents. Yet this widow’s small gift meant more in the course of history than large riches ever could because her gift was a sacrifice of the heart.
As I consider my blessings this Thanksgiving season, I pray that everything I say, do, and give will be done in the spirit of the widow and my student (and his family) and that my life will be one lived out of beautiful sacrifices of the heart.
Always.
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