The Joyful Family: A Lesson in Contentment {part one}

It had been a long morning; I had been up since 3:30am baking bread for the farmer's market that was to take place later that day.  Exhausted and needing a break from swirling cinnamon into whole wheat,  I sunk into the lazyboy sitting next to the family computer desk and grabbed the wireless mouse.  My sister's blogger account was up, so I proceeded to browse the latest posts.  I clicked on one, and there I read a story that nearly made me cry...

It was a story that had been shared by a friend of mine, Michael Schroeder, on his blog.  I was so blessed by this story, so encouraged and challenged, that I wanted to share it with you all.

There were several children in the family, but the father had died, and they lost their main source of income.  Yet, they were always joyful.  They lived in a small house, and did not have much, but what they did have, they appreciated.  There were only three forks to split amongst seven people, so they made it a game to see who would get a fork each night.  One Sunday at church, the pastor announced that the church would be collecting money for a poor family in the congregation.  The pastor told the congregation to be generous and sacrificial since this family really needed their help.
  When the family left the church, they talked over what they could do to help the family.  They did not have a lot of money, but perhaps if they cut their food bill, and only had potatoes for supper for the next month, and did not use lights at night, or listen to the radio, to save money on electricity, they could donate the saved money to the poor family.  That month was one of the happiest times the family had.  They kept thinking of ways to get more money for the poor family, and imagining how excited the family would be to receive it.  The Sunday the money was to be given to the poor family, this family walked to church, singing and talking excitedly.  It was raining, but they hardly noticed.  Joyfully, they put the money in the offering plate.  They had saved 80 dollars.
            At home, when they were talking, the doorbell rang...

Click here to visit Michael's blog and read the rest!

What did you think?  There are a couple different aspects of this story that teach a couple different lessons-- feel free to comment, I would love to hear your perspective...

Coming up, I am hoping to comment what I learned and took away from this story in a later post-- so stay tuned!  ;-)