"The Golden Gift"
Some time ago, a friend of mine punished his 3-year-old daughter for
wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper. Money was tight, and he became
infuriated when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the
tree.
Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father the next
morning and said, "This is for you, Daddy." He was embarrassed by
his
earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found that
the box was empty. He yelled at her, "Don't you know that when you
give someone a present, there's supposed to be something inside of
it?"
The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said, "Oh,
Daddy, it's not empty. I blew kisses into the box. All for you,
Daddy."
The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and
he begged her forgiveness. My friend told me that he kept that gold
box by his bed for years. Whenever he was discouraged, he would 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 parents has been given a
gold container filled with unconditional love and kisses from our
children. There is no more precious possession anyone could hold.
"Two Nickels and Five Pennies"
When an ice cream sundae cost much less, a boy entered a coffee shop
and
sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him.
"How much is an ice cream sundae?"
"Fifty cents," replied the waitress.
The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied a number
of
coins in it.
"How much is a dish of plain ice cream?" he inquired.
Some people were now waiting for a table, and the waitress was
impatient.
"Thirty-five cents," she said angrily.
The little boy again counted the coins. "I'll have the plain ice
cream."
The waitress brought the ice cream and walked away. The boy finished,
paid the cashier, and departed. When the waitress came back, she
swallowed hard at what she saw. There, placed neatly beside the empty
dish, were two nickels and five pennies -- her tip.
"What It Means to Be Adopted"
Teacher Debbie Moon's first graders were discussing a picture of a
family. One little boy in the picture had a different color hair than
the other family members.
One child suggested that he was adopted and a little girl named
Jocelynn Jay said, "I know all about adoptions because I was
adopted." "What does it mean to be adopted?" asked another child.
"It means," said Jocelynn, "that you grew in your mommy's heart
instead
of her tummy."
"Discouraged?"
As I was driving home from work one day, I stopped to watch a local
Little League baseball game that was being played in a park near my
home.
As I sat down behind the bench on the first-baseline, I asked one of
the
boys what the score was.
"We're behind 14 to nothing," he answered with a smile.
"Really," I said. "I have to say you don't look very discouraged."
"Discouraged?" the boy asked with a puzzled look on his face.
"Why should we be discouraged? We haven't been up to bat yet."
"The Most Caring Child"
Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was
asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most
caring
child. The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor
was
an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the
man
cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto
his
lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had said
to
the neighbor, the little boy said,
"Nothing ... I just helped him cry."
- authors unknown
submitted by Karl
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