Lessons From A Three Year Old

Last week M was able to paticipate in 3 seperate Easter Egg hunts. (At his preschool, in our neighborhood and then at a friend's house on Easter Sunday).

The first to take place this year was at his preschool which is actually housed in a church.   It was the church who put on the hunt and M was sooooo excited to participate.  I was too, until I heard the age breakdown they would be using.  You see...they decided to split the hunt into 2 different age groups--2 1/2 and under and then 2 1/2 and up.  What this meant for my newly turned 3 year old was that he was at a serious age disadvantage!!  He was up against 9 and 10 yr olds and this was really the first hunt that I think he  could even comprehend what he was supposed to do!  

Needless to say, he didn't get many eggs (4 total and two of them just had pieces of paper with a # on it) and meanwhile I'm hearing all of the other kids bragging "look, I got 10"..."Oooo, well I got 14!" and things like this.  So, in my human/mother nature...I was pretty miffed about the whole thing!  Afterwards, M was looking at his eggs (and realizing that a couple of them had candy in them) when up walks a little girl from his class named Claire.  Now Claire and her brother had just walked in, which meant that they had missed the whole hunt and didn't have any eggs.  I don't know why, but I felt prompted to ask M if he would like to share with her. Without a second thought he reached in and grabbed an egg for her and then proceded to try and give ALL of his eggs away!  Wow!  What a lesson for mommy!  Here he was, excited to share whatever he had, and all I could think about was how unfair things had been for him!  I was humbled and so proud of his sharing spirit!  How much more do I need to be like that with all of the "things" God has blessed me with?  Not just material possesions, but my faith, forgiveness, peace, true joy!!  Sometimes, I just want to live in my bubble and focus only on what God can do for me, instead of what God wants to do with me or through me!  God doesn't want me to hold on too tight to all that I have, but rather look for opportunities to give!!  What a cool thing that God can use our kids to teach us lessons!