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 in a harsh manner,
"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 this 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
remember 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.