My littlest girly, my Gift, turned 8 yesterday. Unless you know her well, or have spent a lot of time with her, she is pretty quiet. It takes a while for her to open up and talk to people these days, especially grown ups. She is going through a bashful phase. I see it with some of her little friends, who also tend to be on the bashful side, and it is amusing to see them being bashful to each other. The moms say, "Did you tell your friend hello?" And the girls say quietly, almost in a whisper, "I did." And the girls smile at each other and want to talk, but they are bashful. It's quite cute.
The youth leader in our church passed out boxes for the kids to collect money for the poor in Haiti. This leader has traveled there before, and has collected items for the kids and women there. Gift has added money to the box from her piggy bank, and all the members of the family have also chipped in here and there. Last weekend, she had this bright idea: "I know!! I know what I can do!! I can stand outside of church, after Mass, and ring a bell, you know, like they do at Christmas with the red buckets, and I can say, "Help for Haiti!" and ring my bell, and people can put money in my box. And next Sunday will be the perfect day, because it is my birthday!" I told her she would have to talk to the youth leader to get permission, and she was very excited about doing so.
This kind of surprised me, because, as a bashful girl, she doesn't like to be up front and center on anything. It took me a long while to even get her to talk to the youth leader, and getting her to talk to other grown ups has been difficult. I encouraged her, and then honestly, I forgot all about it. After Mass last Sunday, she ran out the door to find the youth leader and share her idea. The leader took Gift right away to talk to our priest to ask permission. She asked Father and after a silly joke, which had to be cleared up because she was utterly confused, he said she could do it.
Flash forward to this past Sunday, on her 8th birthday, my little gift couldn't wait to go to Mass, so she could ring her bell after and collect money for the children in Haiti. She stood there quite stiffly, rang her bell whenever anyone came up to the church, and smiled her bashful smile, and even answered other adults when they asked what she was raising money for. I am so utterly proud of her. She looked so uncomfortable, but she stuck it out, and my mama heart is proud of her for doing something even though it was hard to help someone else.
She raised enough money to get clean drinking water for a school, but most importantly, she lifted her mommy's heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment