The other day I decided I wanted to give each of the boys at the Iris home a few marbles. At one point they had one or two to share among all 13 of them, but they had long ago disappeared the way marbles do. The day after I decided to get them marbles Jesus provided a whole jar of them to us for free. Not that marbles are expensive, or out of our ability to purchase, but any provision from the Father is a good thing, and for this we are thankful.
Today we gave each boy four small marbles. They were so excited and thankful over a few cents worth of round glass. They all kept saying "Thank you Uncle, thank you Auntie", and wasted no time starting a number of games around the play area. The smallest ones would just giggle while they chased their rolling marbles around.
About an hour after we gave them to them a five year old named Mahindra came up to me and placed all four of his new marbles in my pocket. Thinking he was being silly I took them out and tried to put them in his shirt pocket. He promptly places both hands over the pocket preventing my deposit and said he wanted to give me the marbles. I played along and thanked him, then a few minutes later I tried again to put them in his shirt pocket. Again he flat out refused. After a few more unsuccessful attempts I ran down to his room and hid them under his pillow. He soon discovered them, chased me down and shoved them in my pocket.
I had to accept it, he wanted me to keep them. This little boy who doesn't have very much, and shares all the toys with the other children, insisted on giving away his new toy that was entirely his own.
Freely we have received and freely we are to give. We can't hold onto anything so tightly that it gets in the way of love. Five year old Mahindra knows more about the kingdom than I do.
-kyle
