Intro, Why I wrote these stories, and a list of all the stories

Read this to your kids.

1 Timothy 6:18-19 – Poverty

“Grandma, what are we going to do?”
Sareen was fearful. Her mom had come home with the hard news – she had lost her job – they could no longer keep her on the grain fields. They had sent her home for good, with a very small bag of coin as her last pay.

So Sareen was fearful. Would they have enough money to live on? She could see that her Mom was also afraid. There were tears in her eyes. And she wouldn’t answer questions. So she looked again to her Grandma.

“Grandma, are we going to be okay?”

Sareen’s grandmother’s face was sober. But then she looked at Sareen and smiled.

She answerer her: “Of course we will be. We are loved. Now I have a task for you. Will you go into the pantry and find a wooden box on the far side, in the corner behind the flour?”

“Grandma, what will I find there?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t looked in it for many years.”

Sareen went. For curiosity’s sake, if nothing else.

==

Thirty years earlier, Sareen’s grandmother, then twenty-five years old was walking through the village and she passed by a beggar, who was sitting on the ground. He looked at her. He appeared to have been looking out for her. He smiled and said, “Noreen, please take this.”

Her name was Noreen.

Noreen looked down and saw that the beggar was holding a gold piece up to her. For her to take. Noreen knew that it was not normal for beggars to offer others coin. Yet here he was doing that. Should she take? Was that … alright? Should she trust him?

She looked around – doubting. But then she looked back at him, and saw love and wisdom and she knew – she could trust him. It was alright. She should take the offered coin.

And so she did. She told him thank you.

And when she got home, she knew not what she should do with the gold piece. So she slipped it through a crack in a plain, wooden out-of-the-way box.

Three days later, Noreen was walking down the same street and passed the same beggar who made the same offer: “Noreen, please take this.” She did.

And two days after that. And four days after that. And three days after that…

Each time, she took. Each time she told him thanks.

==

Sareen didn’t take long to find the wooden box. It was not large and not small. It was plain. She attempted to pick it up. She found she couldn’t. It was heavy. So she opened it up and was very surprised. And very pleased. She gasped.

It was full of gold coins. It was a treasure chest. Where did Grandma get all this?

She went to lift up the box. It was too heavy. So she took handfuls of the coins and put them in her apron. As she made her way to the living area of their small family cottage, she realized with joy that she would have no fear of a lack of bread. She found her mother sitting at the table and her Grandma still sitting in her chair, smiling expectantly as she walked in.

“Mamma, look!” And she let the small pile of golden coin clatter on the table.
“Where did you get that?”
Sareen nodded to her grandma and said, “She told me to look in the wooden box in the pantry.”
Her mom looked at her grandma and said, “Where did you get that?”

Noreen, mother of Farrell and grandmother of Sareen, told them.

They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

Our God has made it so that our good deeds, done by the gifts provided by His Son, not only do good for others, but also for ourselves.

Other passages to consider: 2 Corinthians 8:9, 2 Corinthians 4:7, Proverbs 15:6, Matthew 6:19-20

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