156 Reasons to be Thankful

A friend, Tosha, emailed the following story. She has given me permission to share it with you:

Hey guys, Last Sunday, Sage was dragging her feet getting ready for church. I asked, ordered, begged, threatened, promised, and finally coerced her into getting ready. Her main complaint was that she had no socks to wear. So, on Monday during my lunch break, I walked to the store and bought a few new pairs for her. I suspected that her real complaint was that many of her socks were white rather than pretty. So I bought pretty socks for her. While I was walking back to the office, it occurred to me that I had done this errand more than once this school year. Where were all of those socks?

Last night I was going through Sage's room and I noticed that her sock drawer was full of stuff that did not belong there. I decided to clean the thing out with the hope that I could locate a few lost pairs. Sage & I dumped the drawer and started digging. When we finished, I counted the socks. I was shocked to find that she owns 78 pairs of socks. That is 156 socks!

I was thinking that, even though we hear about how bad the economy is, we are still wealthy. So wealthy that we do not even know how many socks we own. So wealthy that we buy more socks without even looking. I thank God that I do not have to worry that my kids might have to go hungry. They have food. They have clean water. They have socks: 156 of them! I still told Sage not to ask for another pair until college. Even then, I plan to check first.

Queen of the Sock Market Tosha

How do we as a society move ourselves and our children from a heart of entitlement to a heart of thankfulness? I struggle with this for my own children. I want them to be happy and meeting their needs is a step in that direction. But 'keeping up with the Jones' is a poor attitude. If only the line wasn't go gray. Do we need just two pairs of socks? Do we need 78 pairs of socks? What's the magic number in the middle that's sufficent for our needs but not overboard? So here's today's question.... what is an appropriate number of socks?