The music changes. You have already crossed off three hymns in the bulletin, counted the steps leading to the pulpit, and imagined what it would feel like to leap from each one—higher, higher. Then suddenly, there it is.
The collection plate lands in your lap.
Heavy.
On your spindly legs, it feels as enormous as Paul Bunyan’s dinner plate.
You have been waiting for this moment all service long because, before church began, your father handed you something sacred: a crisp $1 bill.
The entire morning, you have imagined what might happen to your soul if you didn’t place it in the offering plate. Your father’s eyes are somewhere nearby. He sees you. But you also know something else: he was the one who gave you the dollar in the first place.
And some Sundays it isn’t a dollar. Sometimes it is—gasp—a $20 bill.
You slide the bill into the waiting plate and pass it along.
When you are young, it is thrilling to be handed a dollar by your father or mother. You know your parents have money, but how often does any of it really reach your tiny fingers? For a brief moment, it becomes yours. You smooth its edges. Fold it carefully. Hold possibility in your hands. And then, somehow, you give it back to God.
So I decided to try the same thing with my own children.
One Sunday, I handed my son a dollar before church.
Everyone was watching from the pew behind us.
“He didn’t put it in,” someone whispered, scandalized.
The middle schoolers behind us gasped dramatically. “Can you even do that? Not put it in the plate?”
I said nothing.
At first, I was a little disappointed.
OK—I was very disappointed.
Had I failed as a parent? Was he spoiled? Too attached already?
All afternoon he carried that dollar around with him, rubbing it between his fingers, studying it as though he had discovered treasure.
That evening, we returned to church. And quietly, without anyone telling him to, the dollar slipped into the plate.
Later we asked him, “Why did you decide to give God your dollar?”
He shrugged.
“I wanted to.”
Then he ran off to play.
And somewhere beneath that weight is the quiet knowledge that God’s eyes are on you—not with suspicion, but with love.
You know God sees you.
You know God gave it to you.
You know God will take care of you.
So whose dollar is it, really?
It is sitting there, warm in your hands.