“Sharing Sweets,” Friend, May 2014, 28–29
Sharing Sweets
The author lives in Utah, USA.
How could less candy taste better than more?
“It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
Ms. Ward stood at the front of the room. She held a big jar full of small folded papers. “It’s time to pick our homework winner,” she said.
Sam, Miles, and Jake sat up in their chairs. Every day they spent part of school in a speech class together. And every time they did their class homework, they got to put their name in a jar. At the end of the week, Ms. Ward drew a name out of the jar, and that person won a prize.
Ms. Ward put her hand in the big jar to pull out a name. As they watched, each boy was thinking about what he wanted to win.
“I hope it’s a race car,” Miles said.
“I want a coloring book,” Jake said. “What do you want, Sam?”
Sam looked at the big jar. He hoped the prize was candy. He could almost taste it.
Ms. Ward took a name out of the jar and held it up. “Sam is our winner this week,” she said.
Sam grinned when she handed him the prize bag. And when he saw what was inside, he grinned even more. There were five pieces of yummy-looking candy! He didn’t know if he could wait till the end of class to eat them.
Then Sam looked at Miles. He looked kind of sad. And Jake was just staring at his workbook.
Sam thought about it. He won the candy for himself. But there was plenty to share. He knew Jesus said to treat others the way we want them to treat us. And when he looked at Miles and Jake, Sam knew what he should do.
When the bell rang at the end of class, Ms. Ward said, “You may eat your candy now, Sam.”
Sam smiled. “Thanks, Ms. Ward. But I don’t think I should eat it all.” Then he handed two pieces of candy to Miles and two pieces to Jake.
“Wow, thanks!” they both said as they opened their candy.
Sam looked down at the one piece of candy left in his hand. He slowly took the wrapper off and popped the candy in his mouth. It was just as good as he had hoped. Sam smiled as he looked at his friends eating their candy. Sharing the candy seemed to make it taste even better.