The Cheerful Giver

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

─ 2 Corinthians 9:6-7

Five-year-old Sunshine Oelfke put her dream of owning a snowmobile on hold when she learned one of her classmates didn’t have 45 cents to buy a carton of milk each day. Sunshine drank milk with every meal and couldn’t imagine not having it.

Her grandmother, Jackie Sue, wasn’t sure what to think when she saw the kindergartener empty her piggy bank, count the coins and pour them into a plastic bag, which she then put into her school backpack. When she asked her granddaughter what she was doing, she was pleasantly surprised to find she Sunshine giving her money to help a friend.

Of the 20 students in Sunshine’s kindergarten class in Ishpeming, Michigan, only half of them could afford to buy milk cartons for snack time. It costs approximately $180 per month to provide those students with milk.

After buying milk for her friend, Sunshine took all the money in her piggy bank—a total of $30—to her kindergarten teacher. Her granddaughter’s compassion compelled Jackie Sue to help Sunshine create a crowd funding page with the mission to raise the necessary funds so students would have milk for the rest of the school year.

Sunshine’s seed of $30, given cheerfully to her classmates, has brought a harvest of help that multiplied her funds and provided more than the little girl could have imagined. When you give cheerfully into the lives of others, it can open the door to the miraculous. God loves it when we give with joyful hearts. The magnitude of our gift is not about how much we can offer but about how much God can do with our obedience.

Today’s One Thing

Ask the Lord where he would have you give today. Then decide to give with a cheerful heart.

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