Lessons from a four year old.

We received a call a couple days ago. One of the local charities was coming around to pick up donations. I have made it a practice to never tell them no, we have plenty to share. I typically ask what types of things they are looking for and try to oblige. This time when I asked they told me they were in need of toys, to hand out to needy children for Christmas. I do not own many toys, my kids do however...

I went up to my four year old and had a conversation that went something like this.

"You know all the toys you have in your toy box?'

"Yea"

"Well, there are a lot of kids out there that don't have as many toys as you do, some do not have any toys at all, would you be willing to give some of your toys to these kids who do not have any?"

"Okay"

With that he walked over to his toy box and began pulling out toys, "...they can have this one, and this one, and this one, and I don't play with this one very much so they can have it too..." And so it went until he had emptied out about a quarter of his toys. He then ran of to play and promptly forgot about all the toys he had just given me.

I carried the box of toys in to show his mother whose jaw dropped. Some of those toys were hard to find ones that we had paid extra for because we thought the kids might like them. It just goes to show, material possessions are not that important and monetary worth does not dictate sentimental value.