I saw something recently that shockingly would change the entire trajectory of my life and my heart. There before my eyes was a photo of an autism awareness tee shirt. I loved that tee, and I had to have it!

This tee shirt was a very good thing for me—good message, good color, good design. What I would soon learn though is this: what we all need to focus on more than the good things are the God things.

With just a few quick clicks, the tee shirt was well on its way to delivery right to my doorstep. To ensure I had the perfect fit, I decided to order two sizes. After all, I could always return the one that didn’t fit, or I could sleep in the bigger one. These are the thoughts that ran through my head moments before realizing I had ordered the wrong shirt by mistake. I quickly ordered the correct shirt, again in two sizes. I immediately scrolled to the bottom of the website to look for a contact number only to find out there wasn’t one. I sent an email to the address that was listed, asking if I could cancel the first order I had made. The next morning, they responded by telling me it was too late. After further reading on the site, I realized a return would cost money and may not even be worth the hassle seeing as the product was coming from overseas. (another thing I had not known when I made the purchase) I decided to hop on Google to see if I could find any reviews on the site, and of course, there were none.

“How could I have been so careless?” I asked myself. For nearly 48 hours, I really beat myself up over this. I felt so guilty, so ashamed, and so angry at myself for being so careless with my money. I couldn’t figure out why I was so distraught over it though. After all, it’s not like it was going to put me in a financial bind. For some reason, though, I couldn’t let it go, and I dwelled on it for a while. “How can I make this right, God?” I prayed over and over.

It took nearly two days of praying before God spoke very clearly into me about this situation. It’s not my money; it’s His. Deep down, that’s why I was so upset. It wasn’t about the money; it was the fact that I had wasted God’s money, money He had blessed me with, money I could’ve used to bless others with. Deep down, I knew God was disappointed. I knew God was disappointed, and so I was disappointed because He lives in me.

Im not someone who likes to talk about giving. I believe in giving in secret; in fact, I even made a blog post about it a while back. But God put it on my heart to write about this, so that’s what I’m going to do. I will say this, though, I don’t give nearly as much as I should, and it’s something that God has been working with me on. I can’t help but feel as if this situation, this “life lesson” if you will, is one of the ways in which He is doing so.

A cute tee shirt that promotes love and acceptance is a good thing. Financial security, a fat savings account, frugal spending—all good things. A giving heart—that’s a God thing. The God thing will always outlive the good thing; always.

God finally answered the question I kept asking. “How can I make this right?” He was very specific. He told me to take the amount I had wasted, double it, and give it away, so that’s what I did. I say this not to exalt myself because like I said, I don’t give nearly as much as I should. But I say this because it’s important to note the way I felt after acting in obedience. I felt indestructible; I don’t know any other way to describe it. Giving came as a result of a careless mistake I had made, and further, it resulted in a blog post to share. My heart will now be more open to giving and maybe even yours will be too. Because I was able to take a bad thing and turn it into not just a good thing but a God thing, I made things right. I realized something. I may not be perfect, and I will undoubtedly make mistakes, but I have a giving and obedient heart, and those are things that nothing and no one can ever take away.

It’s always the little things, isn’t it? The things you’d never suspect that lead to a breakthrough. Often times it’s the little things that actually turn out to be the big things. Because of this one small little thing, a tee shirt, my heart is forever changed. Undoubtedly, it’s a God thing!