The Gift

This is a story about a sweet thing MacKenzie said to me the other day. One small detail as background: Whenever we go to Birthday Parties, it is a really (and I mean really) big deal for MacKenzie to carry the gift into the party. She asks me continuously leading up to the party if she can carry the gift. It's just imporant to her. Now, for the story: We were driving to a friend's Birthday Party and she, of course, had already asked if she could carry the gift in, and I told her she could. On the way to the party she started talking about Jesus, and how nice He was. I told her that He was very nice and that He always thought of others before  himself. (I talk a lot about putting others before ourselves with the girls, because it's something I really want them to embrace and it is something that is very hard for them to grasp.) So, I took the opportunity MacKenzie had given me to really emphasize how Jesus put others first, and how we should try to be as much like Jesus as we can by thinking of others. So, we stopped talking about it, and I could look at her in the backseat and see her little wheels turning in her head. About 5 minutes later, she said, "Mom, you know what?...........I think I am going to let Reagan carry in Finley' s present." I just thought, "Yay! She gets it!" Of course, that was a small, temporary, moment that she got the concept I had been talking about with her, and I know there will be many more times that I will need to remind of her to put others first. It was just a small glimpse of hope that one day she will understand fully what that means and live her life that way.