Mom, I think it's time for you to stop talking now.

As Sarah and I were heading to the Mother/Daughter tea at church yesterday afternoon, Sarah began to ask me questions about her offering envelope.

I just picked up a box of envelopes for each of the kids so they could put their own money into the plate each Sunday instead of just putting in money that Dan and I gave them.  I am hoping that they will start to understand that everything we have is a gift from God and that He expects us to give a portion of it back to Him.

Yesterday was the first time the kids got to use their own envelopes.  Right before church I told them to get a little bit of their money for their offering.  I was interested to see what they would give.

Sarah gave 4 cents and Peter gave $1.  I was amused because I figured the amounts would be reversed since Peter has a lot less money than Sarah.

We were in a hurry to get to church this morning and I didn't take the time to explain my whole philosophy on giving so I was excited when Sarah asked me as we were on our way to the Mother/Daughter Tea what would happen with her money.

"What do you mean honey?" I questioned.

"Pretty soon I will have given God all my money and I won't have any left to buy an iPad Touch."

I chuckled and told her that she can always earn more money by doing work around the house and then I tried to explain that God expects us to give some of our money back to Him and that we should do it cheerfully and that we should expect Him to always take care of us.

And then I started talking about the Gospel reading from church that morning and then I started rambling on and on about trusting God and if she did I bet she would find that she had more money than she needed.

And blah, blah, blah.  As the words came tumbling out of my mouth, I kept telling myself to shut up.  She's only 6 I'm using too many words.  And blah, blah, blah. I just couldn't seem to stop myself. 

Finally Sarah said, "Mom, I think it's time for you to stop talking now."

I burst out laughing and agreed with her. She was right.  I was using too many words and ended up rambling all the way to nowhere. 

But I guess I just really wanted her to know that everything we have comes from God and we should cheerfully give back a portion of it to Him (even more than we think we can give), and he will always make sure that we have everything we need.

Oh, and one more thing. An iPad Touch isn't necessarily something that we need. But I guess that's another lecture for another day.