Tough Times for Good Kids Book One:

PLENTY TO GO AROUND

It was a perfect addition to her collection. In fact, Sarah had never seen a stuffed bear with pale green fur and dark green eyes. Even the catalogs didn’t have one like this! And to find it in a grocery store, of all places.

Sarah stroked the soft fur, thinking about where in her room she would put him--for she had already decided it was a male. Maybe he could sit between the girl bear with the straw hat and the blue one with the silver ice skates.

She smiled, looking at him, especially delighted by his size, since he was only as big as her hand. He could maybe stay inside her pocket, she thought, and tried it out. Sure enough, just enough room for him, without being too heavy and dragging down her jacket.

“Sarah, come along!” her sister said, loudly. “Why must I ALWAYS track you down?”

Sarah sighed, annoyed now, her bubble of joy burst.

Susie always seemed to be mad when their mom made her take Sarah places. Their mom was a lawyer and needed some alone time to finish paperwork before court tomorrow, so she’d ordered Susie to take care of Sarah.

Scowling at Susie’s snotty tone of voice, Sarah hurried after her sister as she pushed the cart to the check-out counter.

And she didn’t offer to help unload, because Susie never said thank you for anything anyway.

While they waited in line for their turn, Susie took one of those newspapers about the movie stars and began to read. So Sarah went back to thinking about her brand new bear. She looked at her pocket and noticed that green bear didn’t even make much of bump, which pleased her. Green bear could be her secret, sitting in her coat, and be waiting in there to ride the school bus with her.

Then the checker started on their stuff. Sarah put her hand in her pocket to pull out her prize, but hesitated, and didn’t do it. No one knows I have him, she thought. If I don’t say anything, it will really be my secret. Some of her friends had told her about how easy it was to take things and get away with it. If I just took him, then I could use my allowance for something else.

Sarah stood there, undecided, watching their potatoes and cake mix move slowly along the belt, toward the price scanner. Her stomach felt tight, and she really, really wanted to use the restroom.

Finally the checker said, “That’ll be eighteen dollars and eleven cents,” and Susie handed him some dollar bills.

“Wait,” Sarah said, and handed over the green bear. “I’ll pay for this out of my allowance money at home,” she said quickly to Susie before her sister could object.

And the checker ran the bear over the scanner and added it to the total.

Sarah felt calm inside, and happy about her new purchase.

Later, thinking back, she decided taking things wasn’t fun at all. In fact, it made her feel scared at getting caught. And how yucky and embarrassed she would be if that happened. And she didn’t even want to picture what her parent’s would say.

Nope, it just wasn’t worth it.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: If I want something, God will help me find a way to have it. I don’t have to take someone else’s stuff to get what I want. There is plenty to go around.