This is a borrowed story from some of my favourite forwarded emails. When the day gets long and tiring, I click on my ‘Favourites’ folder in my inbox and re-read some of my favourite saved mails. Below is one of them. It brings along a little lesson for each of us. I hope you take away something at the end of the story.
The story goes that some time ago a man punished his 5-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of expensive gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and he became even more upset when the child pasted the gold paper so as to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree.
Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift box to her father the next morning and said, “This is for you, Daddy.” The father was embarrassed by his earlier over reaction, but his anger flared again when he found the box was empty. He spoke to her harshly. “Don’t you know, young lady, when you give someone a present there’s supposed to be something inside the package?”
The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said, “Oh, Daddy, it’s not empty. I blew kisses into it until it was full.” The father was crushed. He fell on his knees and put his arms around his little girl, and he begged her to forgive him for his unnecessary anger.
An accident took the life of the child only a short time later and it is told that the father kept that gold box by his bed for all the years of his life. And whenever he was discouraged or faced difficult problems he would open the box and take out an imaginary kiss and remembered the love of the child who had put it there.
In a very real sense, each of us as human beings have been given a golden box filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children, family, friends and God. There is no more precious possession anyone could hold.
