The Rich Family In Our Church

I'll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy 12,
and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home
with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was
like to do without many things. My dad had died five
years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids
to raise and no money. By 1946, my older sisters
were married, and my brothers had left home.

A month before Easter, the pastor of our church
announced that a special Easter offering would be
taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to
save and give sacrificially. When we got home, we
talked about what we could do. We decided to buy
50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month.
This would allow us to save $20 of our
grocery money for the offering.

Then we thought that if we kept our electric lights
turned out as much as possible and didn't listen to
the radio, we'd save money on that month's electric bill.
Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as
possible, and both of us baby sat for everyone we could.
For 15 cents, we could buy enough cotton loops to make
three potholders to sell for $1. We made $20 on potholders.

That month was one of the best of our lives. Every day
we counted the money to see how much we had saved.
At night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor
family was going to enjoy having the money the church
would give them. We had about 80 people in our church,
so we figured that whatever amount of money we had to give,
the offering would surely be 20 times that much. After all,
every Sunday the Pastor had reminded everyone to save
for the sacrificial offering.

The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store
and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one
$10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to
show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money
before. That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep.
We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Easter;
we had $70 for the sacrificial offering. We could hardly wait
to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring.
We didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a
mile from our home, but it didn't seem to matter how
wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill
the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet,
but we sat in church proudly, despite how we looked.
I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls
having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their
new clothes, and I felt so rich.

When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were
sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put
in the $10 bill, and each of us girls put in a $20. As
we walked home after church, we sang all the way.
At lunch, Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought
a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter
eggs with our fried potatoes!

Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car.
Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment,
and then came back with an envelope in her hand.
We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word.
She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money.
There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 bill, and
seventeen $1 bills. Mom put the money back in the envelope.
We didn't talk, but instead, just sat and stared at the floor.
We had gone from feeling like millionaires
to feeling like pure trash.

We kids had had such a happy life that we felt sorry
for anyone who didn't have our mom and dad for
parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and
other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun
to share silverware and see whether we got the fork
or the spoon that night. We had two knives which we
passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we
didn't have a lot of things that other people had,
but I'd never thought we were poor. That Easter Day
I found out we were poor. The minister had brought us
the money for the poor family, so we must be poor.

I didn't like being poor. I looked at my dress and
worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed that I didn't
want to go back to church. Everyone there probably
already knew we were poor! I thought about school.
I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of
over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school
knew we were poor. I decided I could quit school
since I had finished the eighth grade.
That was all the law required at that time.

We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark,
and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to
school and came home, and no one talked much.
Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we
wanted to do with the money. What did poor people
do with money? We didn't know.
We'd never known we were poor.

We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but
Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day,
we didn't talk on the way. Mom started to sing,
but no one joined in and she only sang one verse.
At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked
about how churches in Africa made buildings out of
sun-dried bricks, but they need money to buy roofs.
He said $100 would put a roof on a church.
The minister said,
"Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?"

We looked at each other and smiled for the first time
in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled
out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene
gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the
offering plate. When the offering was counted, the
minister announced that it was a little over $100.
The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such
a large offering from our small church. He said,
"You must have some rich people in this church."

Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that
"little over $100." We were the rich family in the
church! Hadn't the missionary said so?
Deep down, I knew that we were actually a rich family.

~~~~ Author Unknown ~~~~
Matthew 6:20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

Luke 12:34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Colossians 2:2 That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;

Colossians 2:3 In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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