Our middle son has always had a kind heart and a gentle spirit. When he was in kindergarten he was always giving away his school supplies. He would come home and explain how someone else needed his pencil or crayons more than he did. I quit buying the fancy supplies, and often would send him with old crayons. And still he continued to share what he had. Each time I tried to convince him that he could share without necessarily giving everything away, he would always explain how much they enjoyed his supplies.

I was nearing the end of my patience when he came home one day wearing someone else’s jacket. One warm morning he had forgotten his jacket as he left for school. As the day progressed it became cooler. While asking him about the jacket, he explained that he was cold and couldn’t go outside to play at recess. He friends wanted to play with him so they offered to share their jackets. He then looked up and said something that I’ll never forget…”You don’t have to be cold when you share daddy.”

It is so easy to become isolated while we are working so hard to meet the needs of our families and ourselves. Often times it appears as if the only purpose in living is to make a living. As we work toward making a living, we can find ourselves striving for more and more as we begin to share less and less or ourselves with our community, with our friends and eventually even our own families and God.

Proverbs 29:23 says: “A man’s pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.” This passage suggests that real fulfillment and accomplishment in life is found in the sharing of ourselves with and for others. It’s a reminder that the only sure way to freeze to death is to be wrapped up in yourself.