This article originally appeared on FamilyLife MomBlog on March 19, 2009.

It was one of those rare times that I got to pick up Lydia, our 4-year-old granddaughter, from preschool. Talk about a boost to the ego! She squealed my name, gave me a huge hug, and handed me her lunch box stuffed full of papers and projects.

As I strapped her into her booster car seat, she began to tell me that they had learned about the planets that day. “Nana, the ‘earf’ is a planet and it has a moon. When the moon is dark, it is a new moon and when it is all light, it is a full moon. My teacher says that Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon. I don’t believe her. I think he is pretend. And do you know what else, Nana? When God made the ‘earf,’ it was all dark and then God said, ‘Let there be light’ ... Nana, do you know that Jesus is God?”

About that time, something else caught her attention and my celestial lesson came to an abrupt end. “Nana, look! A garage sale sign. Can we stop?”

Well, of course, we stopped.

As I lifted her out of the car, she made a beeline for a pink bicycle that someone had outgrown. Lydia got the helmet from the handle bars, put it on, and took the bike for a spin down the driveway. When she got off the bike and replaced the helmet, she announced, “Nana, I already have a bike. It’s blue and blue isn’t my favorite color, but I told Mommy that I am going to be thankful for what I have.”

Do you know how easy it would have been for me to buy that pink garage sale bicycle for her? But in doing so, I may have undermined a lesson that we all need in life and especially during these tough economic times: Rather than focus on what we don’t have, we all need to be thankful for what we do have. Faith, family, friends, freedom, and in Lydia’s case, a blue bike.

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