This morning as I was sitting at a stoplight while driving Owen to school, a middle-aged woman stood in the median right next to my window. She took a step toward the car, with huge puppy dog eyes, holding a sign that said, "I'm hungry. Can you help?" This quickly got Owen's attention and as he strained to catch a look at this lady he asked, "What does her sign say?"
"It says she's hungry." ("I'm pretty sure all she wants is some cash for her addiction" is what I thought.)
However, Owen and I had just had a conversation three minutes previously. He asked, "How is Jesus in everyone's heart if he's only one person?" I tried to explain that to him as best I could.
And what better way, I thought, to reinforce what I taught him than to do what Jesus would do? I reached over and grabbed the small Clementine orange that was to be my morning snack, rolled down the window and handed it to her.
"Mommy, what did you do?"
"She was hungry, so I gave her my orange."
At this point I expected to see a sparkle in his eye as he acknowledged a kind deed and learned a valuable lesson. There was a bit of a sparkle, but it turns out it was caused by the sun shining against giant tears rolling down his face.
"MOMMMMMY! But that was YOUR ORANGE! THAT WAS YOUR LUNCH! YOU'LL BE HUNGRY! YOU'LL BE HUNGRYYYYYY!"
(uncontrollable sobbing and wailing for several minutes)
At the end of it all, he was furious with me for giving up my food.
Lesson... FAIL.
Lesson... FAIL.
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